Full text of "University of California publications in modern philology"

See other formats

BINDING LISTNOV 1 1922:

University of California Publications

MODERN PHILOLOGY

VOLUME XI

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY
HUGO K. SCHILLING
RUDOLPH SCHEVILL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

1922

I/. \\

THE

CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY
ANNIVERSARY PAPERS

CONTRIBUTED BY FORMER STUDENTS OF PROFESSOR GAYLEY
AND BY MEMBERS OF HIS DEPARTMENT AND PRESENTED TO
HIM IN CELEBRATION OF HIS THIRTIETH YEAR OF DISTIN-
GUISHED SERVICE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

1889-1919

THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

1922

PREFACE

In May, 1919, Professor Charles Mills Gayley completed his
thirtieth year as head of the Department of English in the
University of California. Desiring to signalize this date, mem-
bers of the department began, in the preceding year, plans for
the present volume. In view of war conditions it was thought
best to invite contributions only from scholars at some time as-
sociated with Professor Gayley in the department, whether as
students or as teachers.

The editorship of the volume was entrusted to Professors
Hart, Kurtz, and Brodeur.

The bibliography was prepared by Mr. J. C. Eowell, Librar-
ian Emeritus of the University of California.

The volume is now presented to Professor Gayley as an
inadequate symbol of the widespread appreciation of his dis-
tinguished service as a scholar and trainer of scholars; as a
brilliant lecturer, who has taught thousands of men and women
to know and to love the best that is in literature ; as an eloquent
speaker for a true Americanism; and as a wise counselor and
constant friend.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE ACCENTUATION OF THE EE SEARCH-GROUP OF WOKDS 3

CORNELIUS B. BRADLEY, M.A., Professor of Ehetoric, Emeritus,
University of California

JAMES, BERGSON, AND DETERMINISM 23

EVANDER BRADLEY MCGILVARY, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy,
University of Wisconsin

SOME OLD FRENCH MIRACLES OF OUR LADY AND

CHAUCER'S PRIORESSES TALE 31

WALTER MORRIS HART, Ph.D., Professor of English Philology,
University of California

CHAUNCEY WETMORE WELLS, A.B., Professor of English Com-
position, University of California

TWELVE ANDAMANESE SONGS 79

BENJAMIN P. KURTZ, Ph.D., Professor of English, University
of California

THE TRANSMISSION OF FOLK TALES 131

STITH THOMPSON, Ph.D., Professor of English, Colorado College

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN APPRECIATION OF RABELAIS 139

GEORGE RUPERT MACMINN, A.B., Associate Professor of
English, Throop College of Technology

COLERIDGE'S ESTIMATE OF FIELDING 155

FREDERIC T. BLANCHARD, B.L., M.A., Associate Professor of
English, University of California

-BLAKE, CARLYLE, AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ... 167

HAROLD LAWTON BRUCE, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English
Composition, University of California

POE'S DOCTRINE OF EFFECT 179

GEORGE F. RICHARDSON, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English,
University of Texas

PAGE

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND L1TERAEY CRITICISM 189

HERBERT ELLSWORTH CORY, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
English Composition, University of California

ANDROCLES AND THE LION 197

ARTHUR GILCHRIST BRODEUR, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
English Philology, University of California

THE LITANY IN ENGLISH 217

JANE GAY DODGE, A.B., M.A., Instructor in English, Vassar
College

THE LADY FROM THE SEA 229

SIGURD BERNARD HUSTVEDT, Ph.D., Instructor in Rhetoric, Uni-
versity of Minnesota

AN ESSAY ON GAELIC BALLADS 241

WILLIAM W. LYMAN, Jr., M.A., Instructor in Celtic and Eng-
lish, University of California

A METHOD OF STUDYING THE STRUCTURE OF PRIMITIVE

VERSE APPLIED TO THE SONGS OF THE TETON-SIOUX 269

GUY MONTGOMERY, M.A., Instructor in English, University
of California

A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF CHARLES MILLS

GAYLEY FROM 1881 TO 1920 , 287

THE ACCENTUATION OF THE
RESEARCH -GROUP OF WORDS

CORNELIUS BEACH BRADLEY

THE ACCENTUATION OF THE
RESEARCH-GROUP OF WORDS

At one of the sessions of a recent conference of distinguished
university men Research was the topic under consideration. In
the discussion — so the story runs — there was no more uniformity
in pronouncing the word than there was agreement touching the
place and function of the thing itself in the university. At last
one of the members, unable longer to endure such confusion of
speech, arose and rebuked his fellows for not knowing how to
pronounce the name of the thing they undertook to discuss in
public. The offense was at 6nce so flagrant and so common that
the incident had not a little publicity. Soon afterward, however,
the same distinguished man was speaking before 'his own univer-
sity, and, having occasion to touch upon the same topic, was lis-
tened to attentively by some who had heard the tale and desired
to learn from such high authority the right pronunciation of
the word. In his brief remarks the speaker three times said
research', and four times re'search. Thus, alas, do evil com-
munications corrupt good manners.

If research were the only word involved in this confusion,
nothing more need be said. A glance at the dictionary would
settle the question. But there are many other words of
the same historic group which, after five centuries of
fairly stable accentuation, are all at once discovered to
be in the same phase of instability as the word
research. Such — to name but a few that one may hear any day —
are the nouns address, adult, atto-y, ally, annex, combine, decoy,
discourse, rebate, and recess. The Oxford Dictionary, being
strictly historical in purpose and method, and therefore limited

4 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

to consideration of such speech only as is actually of record in
books — and in the matter of accentuation limited to such evi-
dence as may be gathered from the chance occurrence of words
in verse — accents all these words alike on the second syllable.
This represents no doubt perfectly the usage of Wordsworth,
Browning, and Tennyson, but not at all that of ' ' the man in the
street." In the late American dictionaries, however, the voice
of the "man in the street" begins to make itself heard. So in
the Century Dictionary (1899) we find ally', sometimes al'ly;
in Funk and Wagnalls (1913) recess' or re' cess; while the Inter-
national (1917) allows the accentuation of either syllable in
four of these words : annex, combine, rebate, and recess.

Thus within the last quarter of a century five words out of
our little group of ten have broken their bonds and escaped into
freedom, and the other five are struggling hard to join them.
But freedom here, as everywhere else, is no state of rest — it is
only the momentary poise of unstable equilibrium. The force
which has stirred these words out of their former stability still
heaves at them, and is not likely to cease until they come to rest
again on the other side, with accent only on the first syllable;
as has happened earlier to affix, concept, rebel, subject, object,
and many others of the larger group which these represent.

From this preliminary glance at the general situation let
us pass on to a brief review of the nature and origin of the
particular group, of words to which research belongs. The
typical word of this group begins as a Latin verb compounded
of the prefix re- and a monosyllabic verb-stem, of which revocdre
and recipere are familiar examples. In late Latin and in
Romance speech, which was successor to the Latin, these words
lived on through various changes of form until they appeared
in Old French as revoquer and receveir. At this stage they were
taken over into Middle English practically as they stood — save
for the loss of their inflectional endings — appearing as revoque

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Besearch-Group of Words 5

and receyve.1 And there is no doubt that when these words
became English, their accentuation followed the French of those
forms which present the stem without syllabic addition, such
as the first singular present indicative or subjunctive.

But the stock of verbs inherited from the Latin did not
suffice for the needs of Romance speech. Like all other living
tongues it must ever have new words to express new phases of
life and thought. To meet this need it appropriated verbs
wherever it could find them, or made them outright, just as we
do now, of any material native or foreign that would carry
the desired meaning — simply by equipping the bare stems with
verbal inflections. When these new verbs needed modification,
they were free to take the regular Latin prefixes, thus making
new compounds. Thereafter they were nowise to be distin-
guished— save by knowledge of their history — from the lineal
descendants of classic Latin verbs. As an example of such a
formation on a Latin base we may cite the English verb research,
now nearly obsolete, mate of the noun which started all this
trouble. It came late into English from the 16th century French
recercher, which has become modern French rechercher. The
16th century word came from medieval Latin recercdre, "to
circle round and round, ' ' and hence ' ' to examine thoroughly ' '-
which is a compound of re- -f- late Latin circare, a verb made as
described above from the classic Latin noun circus, "circle."
From a Teutonic base we have reward and regard from Middle
English rewarde and regarde, from the Old French doublet-
forms rewarder and reguarder, both from re- -\- Teutonic ward-
on, "to watch."

By the 16th century the prefix re- had become fully natural-
ized in English speech, and was applicable alike to native and

i The etymologies cited in this paper are all from the Oxford Dictionary.
This study has been limited to dissyllables not because the word research
happens to be such, but because every increase in the number of syllables
introduces new possibilities of variation which tend to keep the final position
of the stress forever in doubt. Thus the accentuation of the word obligatory
is given in five different forms by the seven representative dictionaries of
the last half -century cited by the New International. Of. its "Guide to
Pronunciation," p. Ixx.

6 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

to foreign words.2 Thus alongside of recast, reseat, reshape,
from English bases, we have from the Latin rearrange and
reconstruct, which happen to be twice compounded. These
English-made compounds, however, differ somewhat from the
imported ones. In the latter the signification of the prefix ranges
over the wide field of its Latin meanings, while in the native
compounds it is practically limited to the one meaning of
"again," "anew." There is a difference also in the pronuncia-
tion of the vowel of the prefix, which is no longer the obscure i
of report, restrain, but the more fully pronounced close I of
rename, remake.3 Not infrequently it may receive a slight degree
of stress, which, however, is not allowed to displace the full
stress on the stem-syllable following it. But under certain
circumstances — as, for example, in such phrases as make and
remake, where the simple verb is followed by the compound in
order to emphasize the idea of repetition — the prefix, for the
nonce, is fully stressed. These exceptions, however, do not
invalidate the general rule, which from the beginning has
stressed these verbs on the ultima.

So far the verbs. But throughout the group of languages
with which we are here concerned it is a frequent thing to find
associated with the verb a noun formed on the same stem, and
differing from the verb in inflection only. Many Romance and
Teutonic verbs compounded with re- were thus already mated
with nouns in Old French, forming pairs like reguarder — regard,
reposer — repos. "When these pairs became English, the French
inflections of both verb and noun were replaced by English
ones, which later were so far lost that, in the forms by which
they are commonly cited, the two were exactly alike. Old
English too had its own paired verbs and nouns distinguished
only by their inflections, and ready to receive at need the
Latin prefixes — pairs like fillan — fillu, mearcian — mearc. These
through composition have given us refill and remark, which

2 In our group of 274 verbs compounded with re- there are 85 formed
on English stems.

3 Cf . Oxford Dictionary s. v. EE-.

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Research-Group of Words 7

may be either verb or noun. Both these processes — that of
forming new pairs by direct derivation of noun from verb or
vice versa,, and that of compounding either with the prefix —
have gone on uninterruptedly ever since.

Ill

The group of words with which research is immediately
connected is thus seen to consist: (1) of all the paired verbs
and nouns described above; (2) of all unattached verbs of like
origin and form; and (3) of all similar unattached nouns that
have at some time been paired with verbs, but now have lost their
mates. The features and habits of the group as a whole are
matters of prime importance in determining, and therefore in
understanding, the behavior of individual words. Search there-
fore was made in the Oxford Dictionary for all words of the
group that are still in general use. A complete tabulation was
then made of them and of all ascertainable facts in any way
concerned with their accentuation. Analysis and summary of
the results is as follows :

I. GROUPING AND NUMBERS

Words listed 371

Verbs 274 74%

Nouns , 97 26%

Pairs, verb and noun 91

Single verbs 183

Single nouns 6

II. ACCENTUATION IN GENERAL

Final syllable stressed 354 95%%

Initial syllable stressed 15 4%

Either syllable stressed 2 %%

III. ACCENTUATION OF THE VARIOUS GROUPS
Verbs —

Final syllable stressed 269 98%%

Initial syllable stressed 5

8 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Nouns —

Final syllable stressed 85 88%

Initial syllable stressed 10 10%

Either syllable stressed 2 2%

Pairs —

Both stress final syllable - 79 87%

Both stress initial syllable (List 1

below) 6

Verbs final, nouns initial (List 2

below) _ 6

Single verbs — all stress final 183

Single nouns — 5 final, 1 initial (List 3

below) 6

List 1. refuge, rel'ish, ren'der, res'cue, respite, rev'el.

List 2. rebel, record, refuse, regress; with reflex and retail, the nouns
of which pairs may stress either syllable.

List 3. recluse, recourse, remorse, repast, repine, final; re'cept, initial.

These figures show an overwhelming preponderance of stress
on the final syllable. If the result be taken as representing
educated English usage of fifty years ago, and we turn in hope
of a more liberal ruling to recent authorities on this side of the
Atlantic, we shall find that barely three words have been added
to the English list of permissible variants, namely, the nouns
rebate, recess, and relay. The case of research is evidently still
sub judice. Those who are minded to take liberties with the
word, will do so at their peril.

The study so far has developed these significant features of
our group: (1) obvious identity between the typical accentua-
tion of the group and that of its originals ; so that all these words
taken over from the Old French presumably had final stress at
their start in English; (2) a remarkable uniformity and per-
sistence of final stress throughout the group, with however a
few exceptions which for some centuries have steadily stressed
the first syllable;- (3) a marked tendency of late on the part of

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Research-Group of Words 9

a considerable number of these words to break away from their
traditional accentuation, and stress the first syllable. The next
step, therefore, was to make a careful study of the history of
those early exceptions, eighteen in number, to ascertain whether,
like the exceptions of our own times, they were really departures
from an earlier accentuation, or whether they were so accented
from the beginning. The study was rendered somewhat difficult
by the fact, already noted, that certainty in determining the
accentuation of a word in those early centuries depends almost
entirely upon the chance of finding the word cited in verse
regular enough to be consistently scanned — and such verse was
rare in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The first thing to do was to limit the group by exclusion of
all words whose history does not throw light on the solution of
our question. Of such there were five : ( 1 ) the verb and the
noun render (French rendre), which is not properly of our
group at all, not being a dissyllable until the peculiarities of
English articulation made it such ; and which, furthermore still
keeps its original French — and Latin — accentuation; and (2) the
verbs refuge and relish, together with the noun rescue, all three
derived from originals — now their mates — which had been in
English long enough to have shifted stress before the derivation
took place. These words themselves then have undergone no
shift, but have merely inherited initial stress. Their mates, from
whom they inherited it, are of course included in the lists below.

Thus, out of the original eighteen, only thirteen remained
for the final examination, which resulted as follows :

Original accentuation not ascertained, 2 — nouns regress and revel.
Original accentuation (14th century) initial, 2 — noun rebel, verb revel.
Original accentuation (14th century) final, 9 — verbs rescue, respite;
nouns refuge, reles (relish), respite, record, refuse, reflex, retail.

Most of these words then are demonstrably departures from
the norm of final stress which once they had in common with
the entire group. Of the four whose records we cannot follow
far enough for positive evidence on this point, we find that

10 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

reb'el was mated with the verb rebel', and re'gress was associated
with its cognates e'gress, in'gress, prog'ress, all of which we
have been able to follow back to the original final stress. For
these two, therefore, we confidently infer the same beginning.
And it cannot well have been otherwise with rev'el, verb and
noun, which are doublets of rebel.

In the earliest stages of English speech the principle which
determined the position of stress among the syllables of a word
appears to have been the same obvious and inevitable principle
which everywhere determines the position of emphatic stress
among the words of a phrase or a sentence, namely: Stress the
element of chief significance. As applied to the syllables of a
word, its operation must have been instinctive rather than
deliberative. Indeed, it may never have come to conscious
formulation at all. In contrast with the aesthetic principle of
classic Latin accentuation, which provided for every word of
more than one syllable a rhythmical iambic or dactylic close, the
English principle may be called the principle of logical emphasis.4
In practice it meant: (1) that the root-syllable, or whatever
syllable carries the main concept, is to be stressed, rather than
modifying or relational elements such as prefixes, suffixes, deriva-
tional or inflectional endings; (2) that each word have but
one stressed syllable; and (3) that inflected words stress the
same syllable throughout their entire inflection. But it meant
further that if one of the elements commonly subordinate should
become for the moment the significant factor, it should then
receive the stress. Familiar examples of the various workings
of the principle among polysyllables are : man' if old, care'lessness,
sor'rowful, right' eousness, alongside of almigh'ty, everlast'ing,
unknow'able, understanding ; and among dissyllables: round'top,
top'most, back' ward, hung'ry, rag'ged, alongside of forlorn',

* This is Jesperson's Principle of Value; cf. his Modern English Gram-
mar, pt. I, pp. 150-152.

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Eesearch-Group of Words 11

around' , beside', outdo', undone', become'. Examples of special
stress on syllables ordinarily atonic are: in' come, out' go, o'ver-
lord, un'dertone, thor'oughfare. Under the operation of a prin-
ciple at once so simple, so reasonable, and so elastic, it would
seem almost impossible for accentuation to go astray. And it
did not; for practically all Anglo-Saxon words in present
English speech are accented exactly as they were a thousand
years ago. Meanwhile the principle itself has long since ceased
to be thought of as determining which syllable of a word is to
receive the stress. It is now effective only through its results
as embodied in usage or tradition.

This principle accounts in the main not only for the rarity
of final stress in native English words, but also for its conse-
quent rarity in the vocabulary as a whole. For such is the
nature of English word-building and inflection that the sig-
nificant syllable rarely occupies the final place in native words;
while nearly all foreign words that come in with final stress,
sooner or later shift it in conformity with the prevailing usage.5
Thus, for example, in this paragraph there are sixty-eight differ-
ent words of two or more syllables, of which only three have
final stress, and not one of the three is a native. A somewhat
more methodical test of this matter, and one bearing more
directly on the question at issue, was made as follows : In each
of five different portions of the vocabulary a count was made
of one hundred dissyllabic words in current use, with tally of
the accentuation of each. The words were taken in the order
in which they were found in the Oxford Dictionary, none being
excluded save words from the Greek or the Latin and compounds
with Latin prefixes. Of the five hundred only 27 (5y2 per cent)
stressed the final syllable. One of the lists — that under the letter

s This instinct for conformity — this aversion to what is felt to be
unusual or outlandish — is the plain reality behind the "mystery of recessive
accent" in English, of which one often hears. Among native or fully
naturalized English words its only function is to keep the stress where
it is. And it is, of course, entirely different from the recessive accent in
Greek, which was not, like this, a tendency acting through long periods of
time, but an elaborate scheme for varying the position and quality of a
tonal accent among the syllables of the different forms of an inflected
word as those syllables varied in number and in weight.

12 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

D — showed not one word with final stress. But it is not so
in all parts of the native vocabulary. Under the English pre-
fixes a- and be- there were found in all 263 dissyllabic com-
pounds, not one of which stressed the initial syllable. These
two results, diametrically opposed as they seem, are both directly
due to the strict operation of the principle.

Thus the native half of our English vocabulary today holds
steadily to its original accentuation, not however because of
any feeling for the principle — for that was long ago forgotten —
but through sheer force of ' ' use and wont, ' ' which for the great
mass of English words determinedly keeps the stress away from
the final syllable, and near the beginning; yet at the same time
insists on stressing the final syllable in certain minor groups.
Foreign words that come into our speech we mean to take over
just as they stand. With best intentions, our clumsy struggles
with foreign consonants and vowels too often result in mere
caricature ; but stress is the one thing we could easily reproduce
— if only we could remember where to put it. But of this we
can never be quite sure until in our thought we have learned to
associate the stress of the foreign word with that of some f an.il iar
group of words in our own speech. Without some such anchor-
age of analogy, our accentuation of foreign words is always
uncertain, until at last it gives way to the prevailing usage. Ti'.e
first symptom of drifting on the part of a foreign word not so
anchored is the appearance of a variant pronunciation, which
at first is regarded as a vulgar error by those who notice such
things. By and by it comes to be regarded as a permissible
alternative along with the original form. Finally the original
form falls into disuse, and what was the variant becomes thence-
forth the standard form.

The whole process is admirably epitomized in our treatment
of names of foreign cities. Thus the names of Berlin, Paris,
Calais, Cherbourg, Lyons, all came to us stressed on the last
syllable. Now, however, in our gazetteers all the French names
in this group are given with stress upon the first, following the
analogy of London, Oxford, Cambridge, Dover; while Berlin,

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Research-Group of Words 13

the latest coiner of the list, may be pronounced with stress
upon either syllable. Nevertheless one notes that our German
exchange professors, proud of their pure English accent, take
pains to say Ber'lin — all of which shows that its stabilization in
our speech is still not quite complete. Meantime Hongkong',
Canton', Peking', Shanghai', because of their newness, still for
the most part hold their own. Yet whenever we really take one
of these names into our homes and hearts and make it the name
of one of our own towns, it is sure to become Can'ton, or Pe'king,
or Ber'lin.

In similar fashion, and through the pressure of this same
analogic tendency, hundreds of words of Chaucer's time, such
as: mesure', labour', corage', resmm', refuge', had by Shake-
speare's time become meas'ure, la'bor, cour'age, rea'son, refuge.
That pressure, however, has not yet by any means succeeded
in shifting the stress in all such words. As we have just seen,
very few of the re- compounds have been affected by it. The
remarkable persistence of final stress in this group can be
explained only on the ground that it has been supported by
the analogy of some strong group of native English words which
have their final stress by acknowledged right, in spite of the fact
that the great mass of English dissyllables have initial stress.
Such an enduring group there is, the group of native compounds
with unstressed prefixes, especially those with Or, be-, and un-.

These three stand in somewhat different relations toward the
re- compounds. The a,- compounds, some 135 in number, are with
very few exceptions adverbs, and are therefore akin only in
outward form to our group of verbs and nouns. Their number,
however, and still more the frequency of their occurrence in
common speech, add not a little to the resistant force of the
group of which they form a part. The be- group, about a hun-
dred in number, mostly verbs, is a closer parallel. But the
closest of all is the un- group. Both meanings of this prefix-
opposition and negation — are very near the idea of reverse
direction which is prominent in re-, and are not incompatible

14 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

with the idea of doing a thing over again, which very naturally
may mean doing it differently. Both prefixes, moreover, are
alike in their singular aptitude for "nonce" combinations, and
also in the freedom with which under proper circumstances both
may take emphatic stress. Of dissyllabic compounds with the
prefix un- listed in the New International Dictionary, about two
hundred are in current use, of which about three fourths are
verbs, one fourth adjectives, and three only are nouns. But the
real extent and weight of the group as a whole, historically con-
sidered, can be appreciated only when one finds that the now
unused, little-used, and especially the nonce words belonging
to it fill the lower section of no less than twenty-three pages of
that dictionary.

There is also one other circumstance which may be mentioned
as contributing toward the feeling of nearness between our group
and that formed by native prefixes — namely, that re-, being
thoroughly Anglicized, was freely prefixed to many common
English verbs which had already formed compounds with be-
and un-. Thus there came to be series of "interlocking part-
ners" between the groups, such as we find in the pairs beset —
reset, unmake — remake, unpack — repack; and even triads like
b efit — unfit — refit.

Something remains still to be said concerning the fewness
of the nouns of our group and their feebler resistance to the
recessive drift in accentuation. The verbs outnumber the nouns
two and one-half to one, and are constantly increasing in number
by new formations made on native stems; whereas during the
modern period the nouns have steadily lost ground through
obsolescence, and have gained almost no new recruits. Barely
three of the nouns in the list are formed on English stems. They
seem never to have succeeded in striking their roots deep into
English soil, as the verbs have done. Their loss in numbers can-
not be ascribed to loss from English thought and speech of the

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Research-Group of Words 15

concepts which they express, for there stand their former mates
expressing the very same concepts in verbal form. Nor can it
be due to any disuse of the linguistic device of expressing the
verbal concept in substantive form. That device, if anything,
seems now to be more largely used than ever before. Besides,
all these verbs both single and mated are amply supplied with
substantive representation in other forms. Those of French-
Latin ancestry often have the choice of two or three such sub-
stantives, while all English verbs of whatever origin are free
to make use of the gerundial infinitive not only in abstract senses,
but often in concrete as well, if only that use be indicated by
adding to the infinitive the indefinite article or the plural ending.
Let us note, moreover, that there is no advantage at all in having
the noun and the verb identically alike, while there is obvious
disadvantage in not having it somehow made clear which is
the noun — and that cam, be made clear by choice among those
other substantives. Here then we seem at last to have found the
cause of the disappearance of so many of these paired nouns.
Better service has displaced poorer.

Returning now to the accentuation of the group, we find that
while one and one-half per cent of the verbs have yielded to the
recessive pressure, over twelve per cent of the nouns have done
so, and so much of shift has been authorized by the dictionaries.
But any one who takes the pains to listen will very likely hear
another twelve per cent of the nouns so pronounced without
waiting for authorization — our word research being one of
them. After nearly three centuries of comparative stability,
these desertions, acknowledged or unacknowledged, have sud-
denly become surprisingly numerous. In fact this dwindling
remnant of nouns, often more or less dissociated in meaning
from their verbs, seems ready at any moment to give way to the
powerful attraction of the great mass of English dissyllabic
verbs with initial stress, or even to that of some much smaller
group, if only it seem to be nearer of kin. Thus, for example,
we can see that while rebel' still keeps the sense of both its
elements, and means "to fight back," i.e. against established

16 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

authority — its doublet rev'el, had by the 14th century com-
pletely lost the sense of both, and meant no more than "riotous
merry-making." At that stage there was nothing in the word
to suggest that it ever was a compound. To all appearance it
was just as simple a word as bevel, level, devil, and nearer akin
to these than to rebel'. Whenever the question arose as to how
it should be accented, it was quite likely to follow the lead of
these words.

VII

So far we have considered only compounds with the re-
prefix. These are, however, only one group out of many, all
consisting of dissyllabic verbs and nouns alike in origin and
history, but formed with different Latin prefixes. There are
altogether fourteen such groups, aggregating some 1300 words,
and forming a large and very distinct tribe in our English
vocabulary. The results of a similar study of these other groups,
so far as they concern us here, are shown in the accompanying
table, with the figures for the re- group entered below for com-
parison. Examination of the table brings out clearly the follow-
ing general features :

(1) The unexpected mass and weight of the combined tribe,
which strongly reinforce the natural ties of obvious kinship,
identical syllabic form, and, at the start, identical accentuation —
ties which have held fairly well through all these six centuries.
Not more than twelve and one-half per cent of the whole have
lost their original final stress.

(2) The important position in the tribe held by our research-
group. In numbers it amounts to twenty-nine per cent of the
whole. In fecundity it distances every other group — thanks to
the vitality of its prefix, early and thoroughly rooted in English
soil. Only four and one-half per cent of its words have shifted
stress as against fifteen and one-half per cent in the rest of the
tribe, and against seventeen per cent in the single con- group,
the next below it in point of numbers.

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Research-Group of Words 17

|?l|!?T?inf ?•?•

K
I

s
e
z

j)
1

1
t

5 S

-J tO

H- 00

tOi-'Cn*>-tOtOi-'OtOcO^IOtO

t^.tOOOCOCntOcO*>-cOOO<lCn

» 1

D
CD

i 1

B
|

CD
lE
M

tO O5

-1 ~J

rfa. CO

i— >

i-1 COtOl-'tOOOOOOO<Ii->MtO
CDCOtOMcOH-i'vllOCnOO^CDH-

•4

1
1

tO Oi

O> rf>-

CO H-

H* totoi—tooo^iGe-jo^ito

MOOrf».CnO5i-'O5COH-^I^JcOi-'

3
B"

S-

co
o»

co co

00 Cn

)— * • — —
SOOMCDOOOCOCOCDCOCOOO
COCnCO4>-OCDO5CncOHf>-OO

Per Cent

CB
H
B
H

CO
(O

Cn -q

tOH-OOtOtO: H-COh^H-'Coi :

hH
gj-"

H
S-'

: Cn

: : : : i-* : : : : ; *t : :

CO
Cn

CO Cn
-a en

I—H- totocotoosto

CnCOOOCO^rf^.Cn^JcOi-'hfi.OO^

c
a

)

1
1

to
to

H- >
00 rf*.
Cn CO

l-i CO I-" >fe. tO
t-'i-'tOtO: CO*k*>.CO<li-'COtO

3
5'
E-

00 Cn
00 Ci

to co i— ' i— ' : ~ai— 'Cnooooosoocn
OCOi—Cn: CnOStOCnh-'rfi.tOO

Per Cent

CO
3

t— »

1-1 co

O 0

t— ' h- ' h-> h- ' 1— '
*>.tOCni-'COi-'OOh-'O5tOO5CntO

H- t
B_
g^

CQ
5

1— I
00

>-*
tO O5

: : i—i h-: cotoi tO^J: i

h-i

CO O

H^ f*^

l_i i_> h- CO I-" ^ tO

^tO^COCO^COCOCOOOCOCOCO

h
g

O5
Cn
O5

H-* 4».

00 M

CO CO

— |_ '1— il-ih- 'O5O5t*^O5-^ICnl-*

Cn<IOOOOCn<IOOrfi.O5Oi-'O500

<;
g

SINGLE

»— »

Cn
OS Cn

1^1-irfi.t^.tO: O>^J: COH-cni->

SINGLE

18 University of California, Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

(3) The great superiority, throughout the tribe, of the verbs
over the nouns in number, in vitality, and in accentual stability.
The verbs are nearly three times as numerous as the nouns.
They alone continue to increase by new formation. Of the verbs
only four per cent have lost their original stress, as against
thirty-five per cent of the nouns that have done so. If we com-
pare the accentuation of the verbs and the nouns group by
group, we find that the verb-groups throughout average a high
degree of stability — ninety-six per cent — with slight range of
variation between the groups. On the other hand the noun-
groups vary all the way from zero stability up to eighty-eight
per cent.

VIII

This then in brief is the situation of these words today:
They are the enduring remnant of a great army of foreign words
that in the 13th and 14th centuries came into England, were
received there, were gradually assimilated, and finally incorpo-
rated into the body of English speech. In the more obvious
features of articulation, spelling, inflection, and syntax, the
necessary readjustments were promptly made, and along these
lines the foreign words followed the fortunes of the native ones.
But accentuation is somehow more elusive than these other
features, chiefly, as we may guess, because of it there is no
written record, as there is of the others. After six centuries it
still affords some points of doubt and controversy. But what
may be termed the reaction of the native speech as a whole upon
the foreign element as a whole was over at the end of half that
time. Since then the accentual readjustment of residual elements
seems to have been carried on chiefly through the development
of analogical relationships between definite groups, native and
foreign. In this way our tribe of Romance verbs and nouns —
the chief, if not the only, resistant group — has become divided,
its two parts no longer leaning upon each other for mutual

1922] Bradley: The Accentuation of the Besearch-Group of Words 19

support, but looking for it from without, and in opposite direc-
tions. The verbs found a new kinship with a tribe of English
compound verbs like themselves in all things, including final
stress. Being received into it, they have full English citizenship
without loss of their ancient accentuation.

On the other hand, the nouns, with apparently less power of
resistance to begin with, lost heavily in this matter of stress
during the earlier stage of assimilation, so that now a full third
of their total number have initial stress. This condition, it would
seem, has made possible a liaison between them and a large tribe
of verbal nouns and adjectives, compound like themselves, both
native and foreign in origin, but all with initial stress. This
new alignment seems to be the cause of the present instability
among the nouns of our group. It is also steadily building up
in place of the older tradition of identity in stress between verbs
and nouns identical in form, a counter tradition of contrast in
stress, which bids fair to accelerate the movement already started.

The chapter of history we have been following is nearing its
close. Its verbs already seem firmly established in the enjoyment
of their old-time usage. Its nouns have discovered new kindred
and friends, and are making haste to adapt themselves to their
ways. Were no disturbing elements to intervene, it would not
seem at all hazardous to predict their complete stabilization
before long on the new basis. But, as we write these words, in
every English-speaking community throughout the world is
heard the tramp of its sons returning from the great war — with
new and strange thoughts in their hearts, and new and strange
speech on their tongues. The future of our race now passes
into their keeping. In a world where the old order is every-
where crumbling, no one imagines that speech alone can remain
untouched. But what it shall be no man knoweth.

.
JAMES, BERGSON, AND DETERMINISM

EVANDER BRADLEY McGILVARY

James and Bergson share the honor of being the most
illustrious champions of " freedom" in our generation. Their
united opposition to determinism has not only led the world at
large to regard them as indissoluble partners in a crusading
league against a common enemy ; it has apparently made the two
men feel that they are espousing the same positive ideal. The
fact is that in their affirmations they are as far apart as the
poles ; only in their negations do they stand shoulder to shoulder.
The very conception of freedom which either champions is
roundly denounced by the other. The arguments they severally
use against determinism, if turned against each other's indeter-
minism, would have an equal effect. If therefore it were only
a question of dialectic, it would be the part of prudence for the
determinist to step aside and let the two indeterminists face each
other and blunt their weapons before they could reach his own
armor. The resulting duel would be too long drawn out to
report in this short paper. Let us content ourselves with a
very brief indication of their opposed purposes and with a
concluding suggestion of a kind of determinism which might
possibly meet the demand for novelty that both thinkers urge
so eloquently.

Indeterminism, says James, maintains that the parts of the
universe

have a certain amount of loose play on one another, so that the laying
down of one of them does not necessarily determine what the others shall
be. It admits that possibilities may be in excess of actualities, and that
things not yet revealed to our knowledge may really in themselves be
ambiguous. Of two alternative futures which we conceive, both may now
be really possible ; and the one becomes impossible only at the very moment

when the other excludes it by becoming real itself To that view,

actualities seem to float in a wider sea of possibilities from out of which

24: University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

they are chosen; and, somewhere, indeterminism says, such possibilities

exist, and form a part of truth What is meant by saying that my

choice of which way to walk home after the lecture is ambiguous and
matter of chance as far as the present moment is concerned? It means that
both Divinity Avenue and Oxford Street are called; but that only one,
and that one either one, shall be chosen. Now, I ask you seriously to sup-
pose that this ambiguity of my choice is real; and then to make the impos-
sible hypothesis that the choice is made twice over, and each time falls on
a different street. In. other words, imagine that I first walk through
Divinity Avenue, and then imagine that the powers governing the universe
annihilate ten minutes of time with all that it contained, and set me back
at the door of this hall just as I was before the choice was made. Imagine
then that, everything else being the same, I now make a different choice
and traverse Oxford Street.1

Here we have James's indetenninisin stated: Indeterminism is
the doctrine that put of a wide sea of existent possibilities
eventual actualities are chosen, and that the choice is a matter
of chance. The possibilities are there before the choice is made ;
it is the making of the choice that makes impossible the unchosen
courses that up to the moment of choice have been possible.

For Bergson this way of stating the indeterminist position
is "meaningless" or at best "puerile"; the only clear meaning
that can be given to such a formulation is the tautology: "The
act, before being performed, was not yet performed. ' ' There are
no possibilities before the performance of the act. "Do not ask
me then," exclaims Bergson impatiently, "whether the self,"
having traversed the path M O and decided in favour of X, could or could
not choose Y: I should answer that the question is meaningless, because
there is no line M O, no point O, no path O X, no direction O Y. To
ask such a question is to admit the possibility of adequately representing
time by space and a succession by a simultaneity. 2 .... The living activity

1 See ' ' The Dilemma of Determinism, ' ' in his The Will to Believe, from
which all quotations from James in this paper are taken; read especially
pp. 150-156.

2 Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience, English translation
under the title Time and Free Will, p. 180. Read especially pp. 175-193.
I give here the diagram to which reference is made in the letters M O X Y.

1922] McGilvary: James, Bergson, and Determinism 25

of the self, in which we distinguish by abstraction two opposite tendencies,
will finally issue either at X or Y. Now, since it is agreed to localize the
double activity of the self at the point O, there is no reason to separate
this activity from the act in which it will issue and which forms part and
parcel of it. And if experience shows that the decision has been in favor
of X, it is not a neutral activity which should be placed at the point O, but
an activity tending in advance in the direction O X, in spite of apparent
hesitations. If, on the contrary, observation proves that the decision has
been in favour of Y, we must infer that the activity localized by us at
the point O was bent in this second direction in spite of some oscillations
towards the first. To assert that the self, when it reaches the point O,
chooses indifferently between X and Y, is to stop halfway in the course
of our geometrical symbolism; it is to separate off at the point O only a
part of this continuous activity in which we undoubtedly distinguished two
different directions, but which in addition has gone on to X or Y: why

not take this last fact into account as well as the other two But

if the self, when it reaches the point O, is already determined in one direc-
tion, there is no use in the other way remaining open, the self cannot take
it. And the same rough symbolism which was meant to show the con-
tingency of the action performed, ends, by a natural extension, in proving
its absolute necessity.3 .... Now it is easy to see that this really mechanical
conception of freedom issues naturally and logically in the most unbending
determinism.*

Surely the determinist could not have been more severe in
damning James's indeterminism as hopeless.

But what is the ''freedom" which Bergson in his turn
advocates? It is something which "must be sought in a certain
shade or quality of the action itself and not in the relation of
this act to what it is not or to what it might have ~been" "The
self, infallible when it affirms its immediate experiences, feels
itself free and says so. "5 " We should see that, if our action was
pronounced by us to be free, it is because the relation of this
action to the state from which it issued could not be expressed
by a> law, this psychic state being unique of its kind and unable
ever to occur again."6 Bergson 's "freedom," then, is not the
absence of inevitability; the free act is inevitable, in the sense
that no other act could issue from its antecedents. No other
course could have been taken by the free act because courses

a Op. oit., pp. 178-179.

4 Op. cit., pp. 177-178.

s Op. tit., pp. 182-183. My italics.

« Time and Free Will, p. 239. No italics in the original.

26 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

are made by the taking: what is not taken is not there to be
declined. Only a subsequent intellectualizing of ''freedom,"
by an ex past facto illusion, reads into the free act the possibility
of an alternative. Of course, the word "inevitable" is itself
misleading, for it is negative and all negatives get their content
from what is denied ;7 and here there is nothing to deny till the
falsifying intellectual construction has set up a false evitable-
ness. The free act is — that is all one should say, were it not that
the vicious procedure of Jamesian indeterminists forces one to
go on and say: "It could not have been otherwise." The cor-
rect but puerile retrospective formula would be : " The act, once
performed, is performed."8

Now hear what James has to say of this sort of indeterminism :
"The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying
with one side makes the other false. The question relates solely
to the existence of possibilities, in the strict sense of the term,
as things that may, but need not, be. Both sides admit that a
volition, for instance, has occurred. The indeterminists say
another volition might have occurred in its place : the determin-
ists swear that nothing could possibly have occurred in its
place."9

From all this it ought to be clear that if Bergson is right
James is by logical prescription a determinist ; and that if James
is right Bergson is actually a determinist. To call them both
opponents of determinism is to try to cover up a world of differ-
ence with a transparent breath of air.

And yet they have one common indictment against traditional
determinism, and on this count they both come into court with
perfectly clean hands. They find that current determinism
assumes a complete calculability, at any time whatever, of all
that shall happen at any subsequent time. LaPlace, Du Bois-
Reymond, and Huxley have given classical expression to this
assumption.10 With the emotional reaction against this assump-

7 Creative Evolution, English translation, pp. 287-289.

s Op. oit., p. 182.

a The Will to Believe, pp. 151-152.

10 See Creative Evolution, English translation, p. 38.

1922] McGilvary: James, Bergson, and Determinism 27

tion I cannot sympathize, but I believe that the assumption is
at variance with the empiricist conception of natural laws. I
refer to the conception that a law is a uniform mode of behavior.
On this view it is inconsistent to suppose that a law can have
any existence before there is something that behaves according
to that law; laws do not have any being or "subsistence" apart
from and prior to the instances of their prevalence. When
Huxley said that one of the postulates of physical science is
"that any of the rules, or so-called 'laws of Nature,' by which
the relation of phenomena is truly denned, is 'true for all time,"11
the empiricist in Huxley should have meant his "for all time"
to be taken in a limited and not in the universal sense : an
empiricist's law is "true for all time" only in being true for
any time when something is happening of which it is the law.
To make this clear, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that
at some date, the year x B.C., oxygen and hydrogen united, for
the first time in the history of the universe, to form water. Then
in that year before grace the chemical law expressed in the
formula H20 came into being. Water was not the result deter-
mined by a then preexistent law, which had been lying around
•in some Platonically transcendent realm, available for the pur-
poses of an infinite calculator. Before that year x there was no
law by which it could have been infallibly predicted that water
would result from the union of oxygen and hydrogen under
certain conditions. The calculator would have had to foresee
the law in foreseeing what would have been the result according
to the law. You must of course catch your hare before you can
cook him, and with the best intentions in the world you cannot
now catch a future hare with a merely future trap.

There was a logical appropriateness in the fact that LaPlace
believed in some formula always ready for an intellect vast
enough to use it for universal cosmic prediction: LaPlace was
mathematically minded, and the mathematically minded are
often apriorists in epistemological theory. Modern empiricists

' ' The Progress of Science, ' ' in Methods and Results, p. 61.

28 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

seem to have taken over from their apriorist mathematical
friends their faith in sweeping predictability without seeing
that their empiricism should have stood in the way. The result
is that modern determinism is by its empiricistic adherents incon-
sistently expounded in terms of cosmic forecast. Huxley 's state-
ment, quoted by Bergson, is an instance in point. Huxley was
putting his new wine into old bottles.

I would suggest, therefore, that the old bottles be discarded.
Let empiricistic determinism be presented as the doctrine that
events are determined, not by law, but by the conditions out of
which they arise, and then James and Bergson will not find it
possible to make common cause against it. Bergson will still
quarrel with it, because he maintains that true behavior never
repeats itself; but he at least admits that when an event has
happened it can be explained by its antecedents. The dispute
then between Bergson and the proposed determinism would turn
upon the correctness of Bergson 's intuition of time; it would
be a new debate, for all Bergson 's previous discussion is directed
against the determinism of calculability. «

********

I deem myself highly privileged in being allowed to offer in
bare outline this little study as my part in the tribute his friends
are paying to my former teacher and first departmental chief.
As the present paper may show, I have profited most in my
philosophical studies, not from those who have offered me a
finished doctrine to accept, but from those who have stimulated
me to go on thinking. In this number I have counted Professor
Gayley from the time when I studied under him in a seminary
in aesthetics and had as my special task to report on the aesthetics
of Plotinus. A professor of English who has guided a pupil
through the Ewrnads will perhaps find among his encyclopaedic
interests one little spokesman to plead in my defense when the
other contributors find me bringing a dull study in determinism
to a volume commemorative of brilliant literary and administra-
tive achievements.

SOME OLD FRENCH MIRACLES OF

OUR LADY AND CHAUCER'S

PRIORESSES TALE

WALTER MORRIS HART

SOME OLD FRENCH MIRACLES OF OUR LADY
AND CHAUCER'S PRIORESSES TALE

WALTER MOEEIS HART

Professor Carleton Brown, in his admirable study of Chaucer 's
Prioresses Tale, has shown that the source was, in all probability,
a Latin prose version, now lost. Judging from the surviving
Latin versions which antedate Chaucer, this source cannot have
been more than three hundred words in length, a mere dry
summary, containing the bare facts and nothing more. Chaucer's
debt to it for his two thousand word elaboration cannot be very
great. His chief debt is rather, I think, to the traditions of
the literary type which he deliberately set out to imitate, the
traditions of the so-called Miracles of Our Lady. This genre had
reached a kind of perfection in France a hundred years before
Chaucer's time. For quantity and quality of these Miracles
the writer of greatest excellence was Gautier de Coincy, a Bene-
dictine monk in the Abbey of Saint-Medard, near Soissons, who
became prior at Vic-sur-Aisne, and, later, prior at Saint-Medard,
where he died in 1236. Of less significance is Adgar, an Anglo-
Norman monk, whose collection dates from about 1150. Sur-
passing both is the unknown author of the single surviving mas-
terpiece, The Tumbler of Our Lady, who wrote near the end of
the twelfth century or in the first years of the thirteenth. The
English miracles are mere translations of the French and dis-
tinctly inferior to their originals; only a few of them have sur-
vived. With any or all of this material Chaucer may have been
familiar ; he must have been familiar with material of this sort ;
and certainly he was quite as likely to know the French as the
English versions.

It is the purpose of the present paper to study in some detail
the narrative art of the French Miracles of Our Lady. It will
be chiefly concerned with the work of Gautier de Coincy, but it
will draw an occasional illustration from Adgar and from The
Tumbler of Our Lady.

32 University of California, Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Gautier, it is to be admitted at once, was not a distinguished
story-teller. His work shows but little art ; indeed, he laid claim
to none. He considered himself, rather, a mere translator setting
forth simply, even rudely, in French verse, for the benefit of
those who could not read "the letter," the true stories which
he had found in a beautiful Latin book in the beautiful library
at Saint-Medard. He makes little significant addition to these
stories; often his paraphrase is no less jejune than the Latin
original. Yet he does now and again expand and elaborate the
hints of his sources. He was in the habit, moreover, of adding
a kind of commentary, a rambling series of thoughts suggested
by the story he had just told. In some of his prologues and
epilogues he breaks free, joyfully, as he says, from the restraint
of his source and reveals something of his own pleasant person-
ality or of his enthusiastic delight in the matter with which he
is concerned.1 "I find so much written," he says, "of the sweet
miracles of Our Lady, that, by my faith, I do not know which
ones to choose, nor have I such great leisure that I may take
them all. Rather I do as one who seeks flowers down in the
meadow, which is all green and flowery — vermeil, yellow, light
blue and dark — both before him and behind, even so, I tell you
by Sainte Gemme, I find so many of the high miracles of Our
Lady that I am amazed by them; and when I have once begun
I desire always to continue to relate them. But this may not be
page by page, all in order, or completely, for I should never have
finished. ' '

In his comment on The Boy Killed ~by a, Jew, a story similar
to The Prioresses Tale, Gautier formulates the moral which
underlies all his Miracles and is the reason for their being : ' ' He
does well who serves the Virgin. Let us serve her day and night

Cf. Mussafia, Denkschriften d. Wiener ATcad., Phil.-Hist. Klasse, XLIII.

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of* Our Lady 33

for she defends from adversity all whom she loves and they go
straight to Paradise." Inevitably, then, Gautier specializes, so
to speak, in the character of Our Lady; and so far as she is
concerned he elaborates very considerably the dry and brief
statements of the Latin originals.

Her power is shown to be vastly greater than that of the
Devil. He is depicted as assuming a variety of terrifying
physical forms, yet the mere mention of her name is commonly
sufficient to put him to flight. Sometimes, however, her presence
is necessary, and, on occasion, she may bring him to terms by
an actual beating. And she is more powerful, not only than the
Devil, but than the inhabitants of Paradise as well. A storm at
sea which does not yield to the prayers of St. Nicholas, St. Cler,
or St. Andre is calmed at once when appeal is made to Our Lady,
for she, it is clear, can control the forces of nature. St. Peter
tries to save a protege who has died without absolution. Our
Lord explains that it is impossible to accede to his request,
Heaven being reserved for the good. St. Peter persuades other
saints to intercede for him, but their efforts are crowned with
no greater success. At last he turns to the Virgin, declaring
that her prayers are worth more than his and all the others,
doubled a hundred times. His flattery succeeds : Our Lady con-
sents to espouse his cause, and 'in a pretty scene makes her Son
and Father go back on His word.2

It is, however, the tenderer and sweeter aspects of Our Lady
that Gautier and his like most delight to celebrate. They write
of her not only as the puissant, but as the sweet, lady of glory,
the most holy, the source of all pity, of all kindness, who never
forgets her own, never forgets a sinner devoted to her. And
while they, and particularly Gautier, over-emphasize the literal
and physical nature of her motherhood, forgetting its spiritual
and symbolic meaning, which fades from their stories much as
supernatural qualities fade from the lai, yet she appears mast
commonly in the exercise of, so to speak, secondary maternal

2 Cf . Schinz, L'Art dans les contes devots de Gautier de Coincy, M.L.A.,
XXII, 470 ff.

34 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

attributes, nursing and healing the sick, consoling and encour-
aging the moribund, and accepting with divine sympathy and
understanding the apparently inadequate piety of her naive or
childish devotees. Thus she restores to life the boy slain by the
Jew, healing his face, which they had cut to pieces, more per-
fectly than any herb or ointment. She bathes the wounds of
a monk who suffers from an illness so revolting that none other
will approach him, and cures him with milk from her breast.3
She safely and secretly delivers of her child an abbess who has
stooped to folly. Appearing to her in a dream Our Lady says :
"Have no fear, fair friend. I am Mary, Mother of God, who,
night and day without rest, pray my sweet son in behalf of
sinners." In one of Adgar's stories she says, to a monk who
seems dead, "Look up; be not afraid; I shall cure you of all
your ills." And one really dying she reassures with the words,
"I am Mary, the sweet Mother of the Savior. Now you need
not fear, for in the hour of your death I shall come to you and
bear you in joy to my son."

If it pleases Our Lady at times to display the tenderness of
a human mother it may please her, at others, to demand the kind
of devotion and worship ordinarily due to an earthly mistress.
The English chronicler, William of Malmesbury, tells a curious
story of a Roman youth who, fearing to injure a wedding ring
while playing a game, placed it on the finger of a statue of
Venus. That night the Goddess appeared to him in a cloud and
claimed him as her husband.4 In one of Gautier 's Latin sources
a similar story is told, wherein, however, the youth inadvertently
espouses, not Venus, but the Blessed Virgin. This form of the
tale is several times retold in Old French verse. In one version
the youth says jestingly as he places the ring on the finger of
the statue, ' ' Woman, I take thee to be my wife. ' ' But in Gautier,
as, indeed, in his Latin original, the youth, seeking a safe place

3 It is, characteristically, not Gautier but Adgar, in his version of the
story, who explains that the milk is symbolic of mercy and forgiveness.

* Some form of this story served, manifestly, as the source of Merime'e 's
Venus of Ille.

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 35

for his ring, saw the statue; "and when he saw that it was so
beautiful he kneeled before it devoutly with tearful eyes, and
he bowed before it and saluted it. And in a little while the desire
of his heart was changed. 'Lady,' said he, 'henceforth will I
serve you all my life long, for never shall I look upon any lady
or damsel or maiden so pleasing or so fair. A hundred thousand
times fairer and more pleasing are you than she who has given
me this ring. To her have I surrendered my every wish and
my whole heart, but for the sake of you I would fain cast her
aside, and her love and her jewel. This ring, which is very
beautiful, would I give you out of true love in token that I
never will have lover or wife save you alone, fair, sweet Lady."
He placed the ring on the finger, which was bent so that the ring
could not be removed. Later, the youth, strangely forgetting his
vow, married ; but Our Lady came to him and claimed him, and,
in the end, he entered a hermitage and became a monk. Thus the
story is completely Christianized, and relates the result no longer
of a jesting promise but of one made under the stress of religious
emotion with full realization of its import.

In another story, considerably elaborated by Gautier from
his Latin source, Our Lady condescends to enter into direct
rivalry with an earthly mistress. Advised by a priest, a knight
said a hundred and fifty aves daily in Her honor, hoping by this
means to win a lady whom he had long loved in vain. At the
end of the year, early one summer morn, he went to hunt in a
forest to divert and to solace him. And in the forest, as if God
willed it, he lost his men, nor knew he which way the hunt had
turned. And while he sought it and followed the track, he
happened on an old chapel, ruined and laid waste. — Even so, in
Marie's led, Guingamor, hunting the wild boar, was separated
from his men, lost his way, and came, first upon the fairy palace
of green marble and ivory and gold, and then upon the fairy
queen herself. — The Knight entered the chapel and on his bare
knees he said an hundred and fifty aves before, the little, old
image of Our Lady. And of a sudden the Mother of God, who
by her great tenderness and gracious courtesy has delivered

36 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

many a sufferer from, durance, showed herself to the unhappy
one who so sorely called upon her, crowned with a crown full
of precious stones, so sparkling and so glorious that for a while
his eyes were dazzled by them. Moreover they glistened and
shimmered like unto the rays which shine on a summer's morn.
And so beautiful and bright was her countenance, that happy
did that one seem to himself to be, who could look long whiles
upon it.

"Fair friend," said Our Lady, "is she who is the cause of
your sighs and has so disquieted you, fairer than I ? "

The knight gladly renounced his earthly love and swore
fealty to Our Lady. And at the end of another year, the Mother
of God without tarrying came back to seek him and took him
to eternal life on high where all her friends have endless joy
and solace of her love. — Even so, at the end of the led, was
Lanval carried off to Avalon by the fairy queen.

Thoroughly characteristic, in this conte devot, is the insistence
upon the earthly beauty of the Mother of God. So again to the
monk whom she healed she appeared whiter than the dewy rose
when it opens in May ; never had he seen anything so beautiful ;
neither fresh rose nor eglantine is so shining as her face. It is
so filled with beauty that Paradise would seem too bright, lighted
by it alone. Taken together with the love of symbolic significance
and with the insistence upon the physical fact of maternity, this
emphasis upon material beauty frequently led with Gautier to
a grossness distinctly distasteful to modern readers. As Pro-
fessor Schinz points out,5 the adoration of the members of Christ
was transferred, in Latin, to the members of Our Lady. It was
left to Gautier to put the Latin into French, thus snatching
away the last veil which protected the Mother of God from
brutal contact with the masses. At the same time, there is no
evidence that Gautier was consciously or intentionally sensual;
he was not a hypocrite ; he commonly6 passes over without elab-

5 Op. tit., pp. 483 ff .

e Commonly, though not always. The lines omitted by Poquet from
La Mesehinete d' Arras rival the fabliaux in hideous coarseness. Gautier
regrets that he must speak too plainly but feels that he must follow his
Latin text.

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 37

oration the compromising situations in which his sinners are
involved, where the lai and where the fabliau would be most
explicit. His sins are the sins against taste of a mind that does
not readily grasp abstract or spiritual truth, that clings to
anthropomorphic conceptions. Relating in his stories the human
manifestations of Our Lady he becomes so familiar with her
that her appearances come to seem to him a matter of course
and he does not always record the awe and wonder which they
would naturally, and which, for dramatic purposes they ought
to, evoke. Thus, in the story of the clerk who was not thought
worthy to be buried in consecrated ground, when Our Lady
appears in protest to another clerk of Chartres, the latter
expresses no surprise and carries on with her a perfectly com-
monplace conversation. And so it is with the abbot to whom
she appears at midnight threatening him with dire punishment
if he expel from the church the simple priest who can sing but
one mass. Yet Our Lady's miracles do not fail of their emotional
effect upon those who see them. Gautier is ready to emphasize
and elaborate a religious experience; he feels no obligation to
convince his hearers that Our Lady does appear to mortals — a
common occurrence, manifestly, whose truth all were ready to
take for granted.

One way of glorifying Our Lady and of magnifying her
power is to emphasize the characters of those on whom she
confers her benefits. They are sometimes represented as pos-
sessing a special virtue and charm, as well deserving the rewards
which she confers upon them, her faithful servants. The Knight
who heard mass while Our Lady took his place in the tournament
which, in the fervour of his prayers he had forgotten, was cour-
teous and wise, bold and of great prowess ; there was none better
in chivalry ; and he greatly loved the Virgin Mary. The minstrel
upon whose viol a taper from Our Lady's shrine descended was
not merely a great musician; he was neither mad nor pre-
sumptuous, but was courteous, noble-hearted, and wise. And the
boy slain by the Jew and restored to life by the Blessed Virgin
was already a miracle of perfection: he went young to school,

38 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

but was so aided by Our Lady that he learned more in six
months than others in four years. He supported his mother by
his singing. His voice was so piteous, pleasant, and delicious
that it seemed an angel's to the crowds who gathered in public
places to listen to him. His manner was so sweet that rich and
poor held him dear; he enchanted all, making many weep. He
was so discreet that none could find fault with what he did or
said; he knew neither deception nor guilt.

More frequently, however, these beneficiaries of Our Lady
are represented as suffering from some special disability, mental,
physical, or moral, yet as having, at the same time, some saving
quality. The result of this mixture of strength and weakness
or of good and evil is a certain air of human reality. A priest
is so ignorant that he knows only one mass, which he has learned
through use in childhood; but that mass happens to be Salve
sancta pcvrens and Our Lady consequently defends him from
injury. He chants it, indeed, daily and devoutly in remem-
brance of her, but otherwise he is wholly passive ; Our Lady
delights to help those who cannot help themselves. So it is,
again, with the monk who says continually five psalms begin-
ning with the five letters of her name; at his death five roses
bloom from his mouth.

Our Lady delights also to bring aid and comfort to those
who suffer, not from mental, but from physical disability. In
order that she may shine as mother, as nurse, as physician,
Gautier spares no pains in elaborating the details of repulsive
bodily ailments, where the Latin is content with a word or two,
and Adgar with a mere general statement. But it is those whose
disability is moral who stand in greatest need of the Virgin's
assistance, and it is for these, for the sinners rather than for
the innocents, that she mainly exerts her powers. These sinners
are of a general evil way of life; they are guilty of theft,
brigandage, perjury, and denial of Christ, pact with the devil,
lechery, incest — yet they are all devoted to Our Lady, and there
is no moral abyss so profound that she cannot rescue them from
it if she will. Such persons are more engaging when, as is some-

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady ' 39

times the case, their fall is represented as wholly due to the
suggestions of the devil. The nun who fled from the convent
with her lover was of high lineage and great beauty; her heart
was still more beautiful, for she had cast out the world to serve
God graciously and agreeably. She loved the Blessed Virgin
with all her heart and would never pass an image without salut-
ing it. Only after long and devil-prompted soliciting and after
a solemn promise of marriage would she yield to her lover, who
was young, joyous, elegant, and noble. After thirty years of
married life he will not have her lose her soul for him, will have
her obey Our Lady's command and return to the cloister. He,
too, is ready to enter a monastery for her as she had left a
convent for him. The agreeable elaboration of these characters
is due wholly to Gautier. It is not present in the Latin original,
and Adgar's version of the story is quite without it.

The exigencies of the Mary-story lead, then, to the develop-
ment of a character of many vices and slight virtue, which looks
backward to something like the Prodigal Son and forward to
a long line of picaresque heroes, to a Jack Hamlin or a Mulvaney.
They lead, furthermore, to the development, for purposes of
contrast, of characters who shall play the part of the Prodigal's
elder brother, of the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no
repentance, who are put in the wrong by the triumphant return
of the sinner, and whose very natural protests show them to lack
that excellent generosity, that essential goodness of heart which
shines so brightly in those of evil life. In the conies devots these
respectable people are not forgotten. They appear in the persons
of those who spoke ill of the clerk who died in sin, declaring
that since he had wasted his life in debauchery he deserved his
death and that such a minstrel was not worthy of burial in
consecrated ground. They appear in the person of the churlish
monk who saw only sorcery and deception when Our Lady's
taper descended upon the viol of the minstrel at Roc-Amadour;
this monk was so put out at what happened that he could scarcely
utter a word and jerked and pushed the folk more than any stag
or goat. They appear, most completely, perhaps, in all the

40 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

persons who have speaking parts in the story of the abbess who
sinned with a clerk. The abbess herself, before her fall, is known
for her virtue ; and by her strict discipline she makes life intoler-
able for the nuns of her convent. The unholy delight of these
latter, when the results of her sin become apparent, is as natural
and human as it is unseemly. Even the bishop who is summoned
to act as judge displays more wrath against the sinner than grief
at her sin, and refuses to believe those who, upon examination,
declare her innocent. Our Lady's miracle, however, removes all
evidences of guilt, and thus, in every case, censorious respect-
ability is put in the wrong. For, in their natures, good is modi-
fied by evil, as in the natures of Our Lady's beneficiaries, evil
is modified by good.

The sins of these just persons are largely a matter of a too
lively expression of indignation, which is but one phase of
Gautier's elaboration, considerably beyond his Latin originals,
of the emotions of all those concerned in his stories. Where, for
example, in the story of the boy slain by the Jew the Latin
states simply, of his mother, nvirata est ubi esset, Gautier says
that she feared that he was lost and went weeping through the
town; she nearly killed herself for grief and spent the whole
night weeping and praying the Blessed Virgin to help her. She
bedewed all her house with her tears, sank fainting in the street,
beat her breast and tore her hair, and prayed for her son's
return or her own death. Again, in the story of the Christian
who borrowed money from a Jew, pledging Our Lady as security,
the emotions of the protagonist are traced with very considerable
care. Gautier describes his grief at not being able to continue
his carefree and generous way of life and his anger at the fair-
weather friends who had deserted him. He knelt before the
image of Our Lady, and wept and shed hot tears, and wetted
all his face because of the distress which drove him forth. No
longer had he desire to amuse himself. Well did he perceive
that too much had he done this. He who has been scalded dreads
hot water. He knew well that of a surety he who possesses
naught is much despised. Again, when he suddenly remembered

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of 'Our Lady 41

that the repayment of the loan was due on the morrow, he was
like to die ; and into such grief was he plunged, that he clenched
his fists and beat his breast, and gnashed and set his teeth, and
after a while he fell to the ground in a swoon. And when he
recovered he fell upon his knees to pray, and long whiles did he
weep and sigh, and so troubled was he that he knew not what
to say. Gautier delights to record joy no less than sorrow.
When Our Lady restores to life the boy killed by the Jew (for,
unlike The Prioresses Tale, Gautier 's story has a happy ending),
his mother thought herself better than queen or empress when
she embraced her son. Bells were rung and the praises of the
Blessed Virgin sounded. Had he ten tongues, or twenty, Gautier
could not describe the joy of those who witnessed the miracle.
And when the Christian had obtained his loan from the Jew,
his heart throbbed and fluttered and leapt, when he was in pos-
session of the money.

Joy and sorrow are the common and universal human
emotions; not so much in these as in the special mental states
connected with religious experiences is Gautier 's main interest.
His narration of such experiences has an authentic air and it is
largely by this means that his tales come to be suffused with a
genuine religious glow. Although, as we have seen, he does
sometimes fail to record the impression made by an appear-
ance of Our Lady, his habit is rather to trace with some care
the lines of emotion of her beneficiaries. Thus in the case of
the man who had forgotten to repay his loan, the good citizen
made great dole, and much did he sigh and make lament. And
when he had grieved much and made great plaint, and had
much tormented him, as if the Holy Ghost inspired him he
regained his courage and said, "Wherefore do I make lament?
I ought to be comforted in that He who has power over all is
given in pledge for me. He has taken the matter upon Himself.
No longer does it trouble me. I owe the money and He will
make payment of it. Verily I leave all in His hands." Thus,
in the course of prayer despair is seen to give place to hope
and faith. The abbess who sinned with a clerk underwent a

42 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

similar experience, but in her case much is made of her passion-
ate and sincere repentance. Gautier, furthermore, is at pains,
to magnify each miracle by emphasizing the emotions of wit-
nesses. General rejoicing, as we have seen, follows the resur-
rection of the boy killed by a Jew. And when, at Our Lady's
express command, the clerk who had died in sin, and been buried
in unhallowed ground, was disinterred, and flowers were seen
springing from his mouth, many a face was bedewed with tears
warm and bright. In many cases, however, religious emotion
welling up in the course of worship is, so to speak, self-induced,
or comes rather, as one imagines Gautier would have us believe,
in answer to prayer. Thus the clerk, as he sought a safe place
for his ring, chanced to look upon an image of Our Lady; and
he kneeled before it devoutly with tearful eyes, and he bowed
before it and saluted it. And in a little while the desire of his
heart was changed. So also Peter de Siglar, the minstrel, when
he had ended his visions in the church of Roc-Amadour, took up
his viol; and so well did he play that verily he thought that
his viol longed to speak. And when he had humbly saluted the
Mother of God, and had long whiles given praise unto her with
his whole heart, and had bowed low before her image, he prayed
that one of her tapers might descend upon his viol. And when
it so happened, well did he understand and perceive that Our
Lady had heard him. And so much did he rejoice over this in
his heart that he wept for very joy. Without ceasing did he
think of the Mother of God, and give her much thanks in his
heart for her very great courtesy. And as he played his viol
he sighed and wept. And he sang and made supplication in
his heart. In such wise did he sing and play before the image
of Our Lady that the music made many hearts to weep for pity.
Such adoration is not, in its nature, very far separated from
human love. The transition is not a difficult one, when, in the
two instances already discussed, Our Lady offers herself and is
accepted as a divine substitute for an earthly mistress. It is
natural that the conception of each should influence the other;
divine love, conceived as etherialized human affection, tends in

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 43

turn to raise the latter to its own level, deepening emotional
capacity,7 and, for such writers as Gautier, requiring and justi-
fying the study and description of the abhorred secular passion.
And Gautier is not unlearned in affairs of the heart. Trans-
lating the first sentences from the Latin, but writing the rest
with free hand, he says of the Knight who had long loved in
vain : ' ' And the more he besought her, and the more she hardened
herself, so much the more did he become fervent and passionate.
And love made such sore pursuit of him, and so assailed him in
divers ways that for a while he lost all reason. At length he
sought out a certain abbot and said to him : ' Other women have
hearts of lead, but this one, I trow, has a heart of iron. Gladly
would I that my soul should burn in Hell, and little matters it
to me what becomes of me, so only that I win her love.' And
the wise man ventured not- to chide him, for well knew he that,
in such matters, the more men are roused and excited, by so
much the more is hurt and ill done to them." And, again, in
the story of the nun who fled with her lover from the convent,
the knight, Gautier says, solicited her so long that (and the
homely figures are Gautier 's own) steel became pewter, the
drop of water wore away the stone. But, he adds, the abbess
was to blame in permitting them to be together — he who leaves
fire in tow should not be surprised when it flames up.

If Gautier in his elaboration of emotion does go beyond his
Latin sources, he is not, of course, to be thought of as the first
to specialize in this phase of the narrative art. Christianity
itself is, as Mr. Taylor shows,8 responsible for the emotionalism
which began in religious literature of the tenth and eleventh
centuries and came with fulness in the twelfth century. Gautier
de Coincy shares a general tendency; the emotional quality of
his work is a symptom, a result, rather than a cause.

For Gautier was in no sense a thinker ; he had no intellectual
initiative; if he instinctively expanded his Latin sources he
did so largely by means of repetition of ideas already present ;

7 Cf . Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, I, 349.
s Mediaeval Mind, I, 331 ff.

44 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

he was incapable of replanning and reconstructing a given tale.
If his stories, then, have some of the negative virtues of short-
story plots, it is simply because, following the convention estab-
lished by his sources,9 he ordinarily confined each one to a single
miracle ; it is not to be supposed that he consciously valued unity
and compression. Yet, from whatever cause, these stories do
possess a certain effective concentration, and, in spite of an
occasional multiplication of wonders, their unity is unimpaired
by Gautier's elaborations. If, as we have seen, he yields to the
temptation to do a little preaching on his own account, he affixes
his sermon as a commentary; he does not, like Adgar, interject
it into the middle of his story. And the structure of the story
itself is by no means left wholly to chance. The simple device
of threefold repetition, for example, the device beloved of popu-
lar narrative, is employed in the interests of climax or of sus-
pense, as where, in Roc-Amadour, the taper thrice descends upon
the viol of Peter de Siglar, or where the nun is successful only
in the third attempt to meet her lover outside the convent gate.
Again, in the story of The Boy Killed by a Jew, one of Gautier's
changes, made doubtless to permit elaboration of emotion, results
in the creation of suspense as well : when, in the Latin, the body
is found the same night, the French version prolongs the widow 's
vain search for three weeks. Yet the few steps which Gautier
here ventures to take without the aid of his Latin crutch show
how helpless he really is, how lacking in critical narrative sense :
he assembles the Christians for a game — curiously enough in the
Jews' alley; he records a suspicion that the Jews were guilty
of the murder but does not set his persons to following this
clue ; he wraps a paper about the boy's head to tell of the miracle,
yet afterward relates the story through the boy's own lips.

If Gautier is distinctly lacking in structural ability, he shows,
on the other hand, a considerable power of concrete elaboration.
In his hands, characters become more plastic, emotion more vivid,
largely because, thanks to the sense of fact with which he is

9 Cf . Schinz, op. cit., p. 470.

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 45

happily endowed, he does realize and make his own the dramatic
situations suggested by his Latin originals. Thus in the story
of the Roman lady who is tempted and then accused by the.
devil, the scene of the accusation, where, in the Emperor's court,
with Our Lady by her side, she faces the enemy, has real dramatic
power. The Latin is almost wholly innocent of direct discourse ;
direct discourse is Gautier's particular delight, and, wherever
possible, he introduces long monologues, soliloquies, or prayers.
Repetitious as these usually are, still they ring true, and convey
a lively sense of the character and emotions behind them. Where
the speeches deal with purely secular matters the effect is still
more animated. When, for example, the secret guilt of the
strait-laced Abbess is revealed to the nuns — "She ought to be
burned, the wretch, the hypocrite," says one. "We couldn't so
much as wipe our noses that she didn't want to hang us in
punishment. But, thank God, now she's going to suffer shame
and disgrace enough; may God who can do all things grant
her full measure ! ' ' These remarks are addressed to no one
in particular; and, in general, real conversation, exchange of
thought and feeling with narrative progression, is rare. A
notable instance occurs in the story of the knight who said a
hundred and fifty aves daily to win a lady. It is a long dialogue
with an abbot that leads him to try this method; and, in the
end, it is a dialogue with Our Lady that leads him to renounce
his earthly love and devote his life to her. Much of this conver-
sation is not in the Latin; we owe it to Gautier; and to him
we owe also significant changes of what little the Latin has.
Says the Knight, for example: "Sir, so much do I love her, I
tell you truly, that I can neither eat nor drink nor sleep nor
rest," where the Latin has simply, Ommno quiescere non possum
— Gautier being, obviously, more concrete, specific, vivid. His
handling of the murder in The Boy Killed by a Jew offers
similar contrast with its original. The latter is content with a
simple statement of the fact : Et vocans in domum suam ilium
puerum qui sic ccvntabat securi eum percussit in capite et occidit
eum. Gautier dramatizes this event : the Jew, in direct discourse,

46 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

praises the boy's voice (much as the fox praises Chantecler's in
the Nun's Priest's Tale) and tells him that his mother would
profit if he would enter and sing. The boy consents; the Jew
gets his axe and strikes a terrible blow ; the clerk falls, stretched
out on the ground, blood and brains issuing from his mouth.
Thus Gautier elaborates by the addition not only of spoken words
but of details of action as well. So, when the nun was about
to leave the convent, her way, Gautier says, lay through a chapel
of Our Lady; she raised her skirts and ran swiftly toward it;

according to her habit she knelt before the image And

we have already seen how movement and gesture are given as
expression of character and emotion. Thus, at the very begin-
ning of its history is the Mary-legend started in the direction
of drama, to which, in the following century, it was to give
place. Furthermore, in the homely figures and proverbs which
he uses, Gautier betrays his consciousness of the world about
him and how thoroughly he has assimilated the matter of these
stories — water wearing away the stone, fire in tow, and the rest.
In one direction, at least, he approaches the manner of the con-
scious realist; this is in the unsparing description of loathsome
diseases, to which reference has already been made. There is,
indeed, little to choose between Gau tier's account of the monk
whom Our Lady cured and Flaubert's account of the results
of Dr. Bovary's experiment or of Madame Bovary's unlovely
death by poison. Gautier, as Professor Schinz points out, seems
particularly to delight in the recording of evil odors ; his stories
abound in adjectives of this denotation, used with both literal
and figurative significance. Gautier 's sense of fact, had his
aesthetic creed permitted him to give it free rein, would have
preserved for us some astonishing pictures of medieval life.

For in sense of fact and in a certain religious intensity his
strength lies; not, clearly enough in imaginative, and still less
in intellectual power. Thus, though moved by a kind of moral
purpose, he is but a weak moralist. He is obsessed by the idea,
inherited of course from his sources, of doing honor to the Blessed
Virgin, of magnifying her power. He does not stop to consider

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 47 k

the effect upon society of her intervention in the affairs of men,
of her separation of sin from its consequences, of her preference
of the wicked to the virtuous. He is, in a word, childlike,
inconsequent; or, at best, unreflectingly human. He shares the
common interest in sinners, the common instinctive hope that
a criminal may escape the consequences of his crime. He tells
immoral stories and begins one of them, naively enough, "A
great miracle, very pitiful, pleasant and delightful to hear, and
which should be very pleasing to sinners, I wish hereafter to
relate." However, he does conceive of sin as due less to the
evil nature of the sinner than to the temptation of the Devil.
Or it may be that sincere repentance with confession and abso-
lution justifies in his eyes the escape from punishment. Yet,
as he tells the story, it is usually a matter of so many candles
burned, so many avcs said, though without consciousness of the
symbolic significance of these rites. For the rest his ideals of
conduct are mainly negative — chastity, celibacy, withdrawal
from the world. With his tender conception of Our Lady,
finally, with his instinctive sympathy with the weak and the
sinful is combined, curiously yet naturally enough, fanatic intol-
erance of the Jews, expressing itself in invective so ferocious
that it may, thinks Gaston Paris, have been more than once
responsible for the explosions of popular feeling so common in
the thirteenth century.

There remains for special discussion the pearl of all the
medieval Mary-legends — the Tumbeor de Notre Dame.10 Writ-
ten in a dialect which places it in the borderland between Picardy
and the Isle de France, in the first years of the thirteenth or even
in the last years of the twelfth century,11 its author is unknown,12

10 Ed. W. Foerster, Eomania, II. Modern versions: French, by LeGrand
d'Aussy (-vol. V), Anatole France (in L'Etui de Nacre), and the Vicomte
de Borelli; German, by Hertz (Spielmannsbuch) ; English — prose by Alice
Kemp-Welch (The Tumbler of Our Lady), and Mason, (Auoassin and
Nicolette, etc.) — verse, by Edwin Markham ("The Juggler of Touraine, "
Century Magazine, LXXV).

• 11 Cf. Hermann "Wachter, Der Springer unserer lieben Frau, Erlangen,
1899.

12 He cannot have been Gautier de Coincy; see Grober, Z. fur Ph., IV.

48 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

and his source unidentified. Judging by the contents of the
poem one is led to the conjecture that the writer was himself a
minstrel. He gives as his source the "Vies des anciens peres,"
but the story has not been found in this collection of miracles.
It is not inconceivable that, for once, a medieval author has
invented his own story — no great feat, however, for tales of the
same type, wherein Our Lady rewards a minstrel for the exercise
of his profession in her honor were not uncommon. Several
of them survive, as for example Gautier's Rac-Amadour. Our
unknown author would need only the daring necessary to make
his hero more tumbler than musician, and to develop his story
in accordance with this conception, making use of the many con-
ventions established by the Latin collections and exploited by
Gautier. As a matter of fact, however, his equipment as poet
enables him to surpass Gautier, apparently before Gautier's
time, at every point. He begins, unlike Gautier, not with the
purpose of glorifying Our Lady, but rather with the desire to
enforce the moral concept which in the course of his poem he
formulates: "Without love and without pity, before God all
counts for naught. God asks not for gold or for silver, only
for true love in the hearts of men, and this one loved God truly.
And because of this God prized his service." This insistence
on the spirit of service stands in sharp contrast to Gautier's
material and mechanical conceptions. It suggests, rather, the

.... instincts immature,

All purposes unsure

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's account.

And it suggests ""Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
all thy might." And,

Let a man contend to the uttermost
For life's set prize, be what it will.

This ideal, the ideal of an activity valued rather for its spirit
than for its nature, penetrates or underlies or inspires the whole
poem. A tale to illustrate and enforce it will naturally for the

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 49

Middle Ages involve the miraculous and immediate recognition,
in this life, of work not ordinarily acceptable to God. So, as the
most unpromising candidate for divine reward our poet selects
a minstrel, successful, blase, something of a man of the world,
who yet becomes on entering the monastery humble-minded, and
simple and naive as a little child. He conceives that somersaults
may be an offering acceptable to Our Lady. To contrast his
ignorance and inexperience with monkish learning and skill there
is inserted a singularly complete picture of the devotional side
of life in a medieval monastery — ' ' Everywhere he saw the monks
and the novices each one serving God in such office as he held."
To emphasize his humility and lack of confidence in the accept-
ability of his service there is continual reference to his fear of
being discovered, his terror on being summoned before the abbot
and on being obliged to tell in what manner he served in the
monastery. Nor does our poet forget his joy when his service
is sanctioned. He is thus one of those characters who through
their very helplessness appeal most strongly to the maternal
instincts of Our Lady. Even his fellow monks are touched by
his simplicity. For these ' ' just persons ' ' play a far more agree-
able role than in Gautier's story — one may contrast very directly
the monk who was so moved to wrath at the miracle of Roc-
Amadour with the monk who spies upon the hero of the present
story. In the beginning he greatly blames our minstrel for his
absence from matins and so keeps watch on him. But his indig-
nation, on discovering the truth, is half assumed. " 'By my
faith,' said he, 'he has a good time of it. We sing for him and
he tumbles for us.' And he laughed much and made merry
over the matter, but it caused him sorrow as well as merriment. ' '
Thus sympathy mingles tears and laughter to the making of
true humour. The abbot, too, when he learns of this strange
service sees at once that God may be more loved on account of it.
For both monk and abbot understand his sincerity : both are
aware that they are in the presence of a real religious experience.
And of this our poet's account is peculiarly subtle and complete.

50 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

It begins with the world-weariness of the tumbler, which led
to his entering the holy profession at Clairvaux. It continues
with his terror at his own ignorance of the conventual activities,
and with his consequent pensiveness and sadness. "He wept to
allay his grief and truly did he desire to be dead. ' Holy Mother
Mary,' said he, 'beseech your sovereign Father of his grace to
guide me, and to bestow upon me such wisdom that I may be
able to serve both Him and You in such wise as to be worthy of
the food which I eat here, for well I know that now I do wrong. ' '
Thereupon he entered a crypt of the church where, above the
altar, was the image of Our Lady. "And nowise did it surprise
him that he felt in safety there, and he perceived not that it was
God, who well knows how to guide His own, who had led him
there." Thus, it is expressly stated, peace comes as an answer
to his prayer — peace, and the solution of his problem, for he
now resolves to do that which he has learnt: "The others do
service with song, and I will do service with tumbling. ' ' In all
that follows, the emphasis falls upon the tumbler's state of mind,
for it is this, it is the spirit that prompts his service, that makes
it acceptable to God.

Character and emotion work themselves out in plot; and, to
be effective, the plot of such a story as this must be impressive
and it must be convincing. It is, manifestly, for impressiveness
that the author withholds the miracle until the most telling
moment. The tumbler himself is humbly ignorant of Our Lady's
care of him and acceptance of his services; the monk does not
see it; only when monk and abbot are both present does she
visibly descend from her throne to revive her worshipper; a
task homely enough, yet womanly, and restrained by a taste not
displayed by Gautier in similar situations. It is a fitting climax,
in the sense both of highest interest and of turning point in the
tumbler 's career. Manifestly, again, the plot is made convincing
as well as impressive by this delay of the miracle : for here are
two witnesses to vouch for it. And it is for the same purpose
that when, in the end, the holy angels sang for joy and bore the

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 51

tumbler's soul to heaven, it is stated that "this was seen of all
the monks and of all the others who were there." Complexity
and fulness of elaboration, moreover, work in the same direction :
details of action, richness in dialogue and soliloquy — the thoughts
and very words of the tumbler, the completeness of the social
setting within the monastery, and the way that, as we say, every-
thing hangs together — all this tends to make the story credible;
would make it absolutely so in an uncritical and credulous age.
Only time and place show no special treatment ; in common with
the usual practice of the Mary-legends the time is the present
or immediate past, and the place is near at hand and named.
Indeed, one purpose of the story, as with others of the sort, is
to magnify the importance of its setting.

If the foregoing analysis has not wholly failed of its purpose,
it will have made clear the fact that, a hundred years before
Chaucer, there existed, scattered through these Old French
Miracles, suggestions for most of the characteristics to which
The Prioresses Tale owes its special charm. The Prioress, like
her French predecessors, elaborating in vernacular verse a brief
Latin original, may, indeed, be roughly described as a kind of
feminine Prior Gautier. She has the same delight in beauty,
in formalities and externals, the same religious fervor and
religious fanatacism, the same conception of the Virgin Mary,
the same delight in her story. But she — for so admirably is the
tale told that it seems always to be the Prioress and never
Chaucer who is speaking^she selects with surpassing skill only
what she can unite in the perfect whole of her story. And she
develops and transforms what she does select, substituting for
commonplace verse genuine poetry, changing base metal to gold.

As with Gautier it is passionate devotion to Our Lady that
leads to the telling of the tale ; like her French predecessors the
Prioress wishes to enforce and illustrate the view that Our Lady

52 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

will not forsake those who serve her no matter how naively or
humbly. Hence the character of the little hero, more simple,
timid, naive, than any of Gautier's monks or the tumbler of
Our Lady himself. Hence the foul pit where his body is cast;
for even to such a place is Our Lady ready to go to seek her
own — a faint echo, merely, of such repulsive details as Gautier
made use of to emphasize her devotion. Hence the marvelous
touch of human motherhood in that inspired passage, "My little
child, how will I fetch thee when the grain is taken away. Be not
afraid; I will not forsake thee." Even so, in one of Adgar's
stories, she says to the monk who seems dead, ' ' Look up ; be not
afraid; I shall cure you of all your ills;" and so, again, in one
of Gautier's miracles, she says to one dying, "Now you need not
fear, for in the hour of your death I shall come to you and bear
you in joy to my son." Hence, finally, the Prioress's sympathy
with the grief of the child's mother.

Doubtless we may venture to think of the Prioress as drawing
upon her own experience in that other inspired sentence of the
tale, describing the boy's religious experience, "His mind was
set ever upon Our Lady; the sweetness of Christ's Mother had
so pierced his heart that to invoke her he could not cease his
singing on the way." Not so admirably phrased but even more
highly elaborated are the religious experiences related in the
French narratives. Moreover, the Prioress, like Gautier and
Adgar, and especially like the unknown author of the Tumbler,
emphasizes, as evidence of the truth of her story, the emotions
of all who heard and saw the miracle.

Tennyson used to complain of the absurd accusations of
plagiarism to which he was subjected; on one occasion he men-
tioned .as an example "The moanings of the homeless sea,"
"moanings" from Horace, "homeless" from Shelley. "As if
no one else had heard the sea moan except Horace ! ' '13 No one,
of course, will try to prove Chaucer a plagiarist of the Old
French Miracles. My purpose is rather to establish the prob-
ability that Chaucer had a definite conception of the demands

is Tennyson, A Memoir by his Son, II, 385.

1922] Hart: Some Old French Miracles of Our Lady 53

of the Miracle of Our Lady as a literary type; that he may
have derived this conception in part from Gautier and the rest ;
and that he may have got from them many suggestions which
he worked out as only a genius and great stylist can. A little
reading in these old French writers gives one a better notion
of what Chaucer was attempting and of what he accomplished.
Gautier, though doubtless he must be accorded the distinction
of being the greatest writer of Miracles of Our Lady, was yet,
as I have said, a poet of no great importance; in Lanson's
thousand-page Histoire de la litterature franchise he is thought
worthy of mention only in a single footnote. It is characteristic
of him that he should have been content to write hundreds of
these Miracles, and to write nothing else, just as it is character-
istic of Chaucer that he should write only one, yet with absolute
sureness of touch create a specimen of the type, perfect in every
way, and of surpassing excellence.

THE ART OF NARRATIVE IN
AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Our interest in an autobiography is seldom in its quality as
fine art ; it is rather in the approach it gives to some personality
interesting on other grounds. We like to get a near view of some
one who has played a large and important part in science, liter-
ature, or affairs, who can give us not only anecdotes of men and
manners and of famous incidents he has witnessed, but his own
part in them, who especially will let us see just what sort of man
he really was. Such a view acts, for one thing, as a compensating
lens. What Spencerian could have failed to have his faith in
First Principles disturbed a little on reading the Autobiography,
noting the solemn cocksureness, the want of humor, the want
of measure in the judgment of facts ? What candid reader of
Scott's Journal but will look with a new respect on those des-
perate last efforts, Count Robert of Paris or Castle Dangerous?
He who wrote the Synthetic Philosophy or he who wrote the
Waverly Novels was somebody; he must himself have a supple-
mentary interest, perhaps an individual interest.

So it happens that we seldom think of autobiographies as
belonging to belles-lettres. Yet as we go on in life we very
commonly read more and more of them, and proportionately less
of stories and plays. Why is this? Does the adventure of life
stale in our blood, so that we come to look backward, not for-
ward? Or do all adventures weary by endless repetitions and
unvaried, or only slightly varied, projections? Or do we desire
something less bound and fettered by convention, more casual
in the happening ; something, too, more palpable and testifiable,
more solidly personal than a novel or a drama can give?

58 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Wearied with character which to be true must always be typical,
do we demand instead personality free to be and to do what it
likes and can, consistently or inconsistently?

Our desire is for intimate acquaintance with some man, great
or small, of like passions with ourselves. We wish vicariously
to live through phases of another 's experience ; we wish to hear
him talk, give opinion and detail, and to find out what he thinks
of himself, to estimate, perhaps to puzzle at the littlenesses or the
incoherences of his nature, to solve him or resolve him, at any
rate to know him. So, we think, we may come at a reality more
vivid, and more actual than anything fiction may have to offer.
For, says James, "The axes of reality run solely through the
egotistic places — they are strung upon it like so many beads."1
This desire for intimacy in art is perhaps the most modern crav-
ing. Mrs. Burr2 tells us that it belongs to the Christian era, and
it is noteworthy that of nearly three hundred capital autobio-
graphies in her list only ten are oriental — Syrian, Arabian,
Hindu, Jew, etc. — and of the occidental only six come before
the approximate beginning of the sixteenth century. The mode
is western, conformably with the individualistic tendency of
western civilization. And it belongs to the era of our awakening
from what Pater calls "the revery of the middle age." It is
Pater, also, who speaks of ' ' that modern subjectivity which may
be called the Montaignesque in literature,"3 which he defines as
essentially "the desire of self portraiture."

"Reader," says Montaigne in the commendatory introduc-
tion to the Essays (1580), "loe-here a well-meaning Book

I desire therein to be delineated in mine own genuine, simple and
ordinarie fashion ; for it is myself I pourtray. My imperfections
shall therein be read to the life, and my naturall forme discerned,
so farr-forth as publike reverence hath permitted me. For if my
fortune had beene to have lived among those nations which yet
are said to live under the sweet liberty of Nature's first and
uncorrupted lawes, I assure thee I would most willingly have

i The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 499.

a The Autobiography, 1909.

s Appreciations, " Charles Lamb" (1878).

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 59

pourtrayed myself fully and naked. Thus, gentle Header, my
self e am the grounde-worke of my booke. ' '

Beyond doubt it was Montaigne who first gave authority to
the personal in literature, though he did not invent the type
we are studying, nor initiate its vogue. That initiation was
reserved for Rousseau, whose Confessions, a true autobiography,
not a broken series of essays, is on some accounts the most im-
portant self-study ever written, especially on account of its
personal unreserve which is even more remarkable than its self-
portraiture. With this book the tradition of intimacy in litera-
ture may be said to be established.

Mrs. Burr distinguishes two kinds of autobiography: per-
sonal chronicle, and autobiography proper. The former she
rejects, since its object is to give the history for the history's
sake, the person being only a privileged observer and reporter
whose advantage is that he has gained a near view of the sit-
uation and perhaps can tell of things quorum magna pars fuit.
As he is a sort of special witness, the value of his book will be
purely documentary. Such a witness is Gideon Wells, whose
Diary, we agree, is devoid of literary interest. For Cardinal
Newman is right, of course ; literature, style, is a personal thing,
and a personal narrative whose interest is centered rather in the
record than in the person will not be likely to have literary value.
Compare in this respect two celebrated books, contemporaries in
the later seventeenth century. John Evelyn was a courtier with
a courtier's standard of deportment. Without a spark of creat-
iveness he condescended to letters in the polite form of a Diary.
Self-conscious and urbane, he paid so constant homage to pro-
priety that his style became colorless, his very record, almost the
only valuable thing in his book, wanting particularity and edge.
Samuel Pepys, on the other hand, thought of nothing so much
as honestly to set down the things he saw, the things he did, and
the opinions he held. Supposing his cipher to screen him com-
pletely, he did not hesitate to write himself down, too, and since
he was as honest in mind, as keen in observation and in judg-
ment as he was eager in living, he has given us the true flavor

60 University of California, Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

of himself. His Diary is packed with gems of personality and
with treasures of fact. Hence, without literary pretensions,
Pepys manages to be readable through being personal.

There may, however, be a truly literary interest in a type of
personal narrative in which the narrator is not principal but
accessory, a spectator and not an actor. Froissart's Chronicle
belongs to literature as well as to history, yet the properly auto-
biographic interest is but slight, for the personality seldom speaks
up in its own name. It manages, however, to convey itself
mediately, as it were, so that we generally speak of the book
not as Froissart's Chronicle but as Froissart. But how, in such a
case, does personality convey itself? First, as personal observa-
tion, at first or second hand, for this implies not merely a near
view and a special knowledge, but a point of view, a personal slant
or bias. Let any man read Froissart's account of the Straw
Eebellion (1381), which Froissart either saw or heard of from
eyewitnesses, and then read a few hundred lines from the con-
temporary Piers the Plowman, noting points of view centuries
apart with respect to the common rights of men. The personal
point of view in observation implies also the personal in appre-
ciation ; sympathetic or hostile ; angry or amused ; eager or lan-
guid; sensitive or robust — what not. In the quality of appre-
ciation resides the literary merit of this type.

Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, written in 1722, pur-
ports to be a true relation of the great plague of 1665. Gen-
erally classed as fiction it properly belongs to chronicle-history.
It is feigned history, to be sure, for Defoe could not have been
over six years old when the events he tells of took place, and
unless he based his book on some document not yet unearthed
he would have relied but slightly on his own childish recollec-
tions, very much more on the reminiscent gossip of friends and
neighbors, and most, perhaps, on a journalistic imagination.
Nevertheless his book should count as history, for it is chronicle
in method and manner, above all in its bid for belief.

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 61

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow;
for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and
among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion
that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infec-
tion to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in
that point, I turned away over the fields from Bow to Bromley, and down
to Blackwall to the stairs, which are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank, or sea-wall, as they call
it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up.
At last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man; first I
asked him how people did thereabouts. "Alas, sir!" says he, "almost
desolate; all dead or sick. Here are very few families in this part, or in
that village" (pointing at Poplar), "where half of them are not dead
already, and the rest sick. ' ' Then he pointing to one house, ' ' There they
are all dead," said he, "and the house stands open; nobody dares go into
it. A poor thief, ' ' says he, ' ' ventured in to steal something, but he paid
dear for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyard too last night. ' '
Then he pointed to several other houses. ' ' There, ' ' says he, ' ' they are all
dead, the man and his wife, and five children. There," says he, "they are
shut up ; you see a watchman at the door ; ' ' and so of other houses.

' ' Why, ' ' says I, ' ' what do you here all alone ? ' '

' ' Why, ' ' says he, ' ' I am a poor, desolate man ; it has pleased God that
I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of my children dead. ' '

"How do you mean, then," said I, "that you are not visited?"

"Why," says he, "that's my house" (pointing to a very little, low-
boarded house), "and there my poor wife and two children live," said he,
' ' if they may be said to live, for my wife and one of the children are visited,
but I do not come at them. ' ' And with that word I saw the tears run very
plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

' ' But, ' ' said I, ' ' why do you not come at them ? How can you abandon
your own flesh and blood?"

"Oh, sir," says he, "the Lord forbid! I do not abandon them; I work
for them as much as I am able; and, blessed be the Lord, I keep them from
want ' ' ; and with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven, with
a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man that was
no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man, and his ejaculation was
an expression of thankfulness that, in such a condition as he was in, he
should be able to say his family did not want.

"Well," says I, "honest man, that is a great mercy as things go now
with the poor. ' '

You savor the quality at once. You see as clearly the literary
advantage in the near view and the personal report as you sense
an intimate sympathy comparable with that which Sterne used
so abundantly and effectively in his novels.

62 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

But here is a bit of true record by an equal master in the
personal, William Hazlitt, a Shapespearean critic and scholar
(in the good, old-fashioned sense), a periodical essayist also, who
had turned reporter for the time being, and gone down by coach
from London (December, 1821) to "write-up" a prize-fight at
Newbury, between Hickman ("the Gasman") and Bill Neate.

The day, as I have said, was fine for a December morning. The grass
was wet, and the ground miry, and ploughed up with multitudinous feet,
except that, within the ring itself, there was a spot of virgin-green, closed
in and unprofaned by vulgar tread, that' shone with dazzling brightness in
the mid-day sun. For it was now noon, and we had an hour to wait. This
is the trying time. It is then the heart sickens, as you think what the two
champions are about, and how short a time will determine their fate. After
the first blow is struck, there is no opportunity for nervous apprehensions;
you are swallowed up in the immediate interest of the scene — but

"Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream. ' '

I found it so as I felt the sun's rays clinging to my back, and saw the
white wintry clouds sink below the verge of the horizon, ' ' So, ' ' I thought,
"my fairest hopes have faded from my sight! — so will the Gasman's glory,
or that of his adversary, vanish in an hour. ' ' The swells were parading
in their white box-coats, the outer ring was cleared with some bruises on
the heads and shins of the rustic assembly (for the cockneys had been dis-
tanced by the sixty-six miles) ; the time drew near.

I had got a good stand; a bustle, a buzz, ran through the crowd; and
from the opposite side entered Neate, between his second and bottle-holder.
He rolled along, swathed in his loose greatcoat, his knock-knees bending
under his huge bulk; and, with a modest, cheerful air, threw his hat into
the ring. He then just looked round, and begun quietly to undress; when
from the .other side there was a similar rush and an opening made, and
the Gasman came forward with a conscious air of anticipated triumph, too
much like the cock-of-the-walk. He strutted about more than became a
hero, sucked oranges with a supercilious air, and threw away the skin
with a toss of his head, and went up and looked at Neate, which was an
act of supererogation. The only sensible thing he did was, as he strode
away from the modern Ajax, to fling out his arms, as if he wanted to try
whether they would do their work that day. By this time they had stripped,
and presented a strong contrast in appearance. If Neate was like Ajax,
"with Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear" the pugilistic reputation of all
Bristol, Hickman might be compared to Diomed, light, vigorous, elastic,
and his back glistened in the sun, as he moved about, like a panther's hide.
There was now a dead pause — attention was awe-struck. Who at that

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 63

moment, big with a great event, did not draw his breath short — did not
feel his heart throb? All was ready. They tossed up for the sun, and
the Gasman won. They were led up to the scratch — shook hands, and
went at it.

This is observation, sure enough ; the author has written with
his eye on the object. As for appreciation, there is, first of all,
appetite : you judge the writer to be a man with belly and feet,
as Henry Ward Beecher would say. And he has humor and
fancy too ; and learning lightly carried ; and such a pen ! From
this passage alone you get more than a hint of the man himself.
No wonder that Hazlitt's Shakespearean criticism lives today
if in it he pays Hamlet and Falstaff, creatures of the imagination,
the compliment of taking them for very men, ' ' with color in their
cheeks, with passions in their stomach."

Still, this sort of writing is not properly autobiographic, for
a spectator is not an actor, no matter how vivid and personal
his interest, and that alone is true autobiography in which the
author is at once actor and historian. Now autobiography is
the fundamental, if not the norm, of the type we call personal
literature, which consists, says Brunetiere,* "in taking oneself
for the more or less apparent subject of one's work. . . . Per-
sonal literature consists also in referring to oneself as the center
of the Universe .... and in estimating the worth of things or
of men only in proportion to the particular interest they arouse

in us And lastly, personal literature consists in ascribing

to objects the appearance that we conceive of them, without try-
ing to rectify it, under the .... pretext .... that all things
existing only in the view in which we perceive them, the impres-
sions which they produce in us consequently take all reality from
them." But that is no more than to say that personal narrative,
the truly autobiographic, is the result of participation and
appreciation, blended in reminiscence.

Perhaps we seldom reflect how fundamental is reminiscence
to all forms of creative art. Says Professor Teggart, ' ' The work
of art is not a direct or immediate reaction to experience (such

* Honor e de 'Balzac, pp. 144-46.

64 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

as is the cry of physical pain) or a mere statement of fact; the
impulse in which it originates is the emotion evoked by the
memory of an experience. This act of creation has its begin-
ning when the experience is lived over in the mind of the artist

and is remade by contemplation The work of art is not

a transcript from experience, but the experience seen through
the impression it has produced ; it is not the utterance of personal
hope or fear, but the expression of such an emotion detached
from its immediate relation to the artist."5

If this be true doctrine, reminiscence real or feigned is
directly fundamental to creative literature from the very nature
of the medium, words, whose primary, unescapable function is
to record. It is obviously fundamental to descriptive literature ;
it is even fundamental to lyrical poetry, however disguised and
sublimated by desire. But reminiscence is organically funda-
mental to narrative literature, since narrative pretends to set
forth what happened "once upon a time." Now reminiscence,
if we look at it closely, is an inchoate functioning of imagination,
not the purely rudimentary functioning, the reproductive, which
we see, or should see in the news column, but a blurred form
which retains a modicum of fact but modifies it, toning it up or
down and measurably reconstructing it. But in reminiscence the
imagination is least free, and therefore least creative. To blend
one's experience in the crucible of one's memory in order to
re-create one's former role in the actual, that is the purpose of
reminiscence and that, very nearly, is the limit of one's imag-
inative scope in this kind — a narrow compass though perhaps
wide enough.

Of what may it avail itself, this subjective imagination bent
on self-portrayal? A record worth setting down for itself?
That depends on what is meant. Here, for instance, is an anony-
mous fragment which Mr. Ernest Rhys quotes in his charming
little book, Romance:

s Prolegomena to History (University of California Press, 1916), pp.
184^85. See also Gardiner, The Forms of Prose Literature (New York,
1900), Introduction.

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 65

It was my good fortune, at the age of five or six, to be living in an old
house, situate in an old country town. The house had been a Bishop's
Palace; it had, as I recollect it, noble rooms, and the noblest was a long
drawing-room with three tall windows. Now outside in the square stood a
street lamp — a feeble primitive gas lamp with a flame more tawny yellow
than you see in our days; and it cast an oblique pattern of the end window
on the ceiling and the gold-and-white cornice of the room. This easement,
so pale, so immaterial, had a fascination for me hardly to be explained.
Especially once when the painters were coming and the room had been
emptied, I remember pausing at the door and looking at the pallid panes
with a sort of delicious mingled terror and extasy. What was to be seen
through its wavering twelve squares? The child's other country; or the
empty street with a lamp, some closed shops, and another street opening—
the beginning of the road that leads to the end of the world?

Now if the autobiographer can fill his book with matter of
that quality I, for one, will read it with as much interest as I
give to Casanova's escape from the Ducal Palace, or Pliny's
letters to Tacitus on the great eruption of Vesuvius. My author
may note fact stranger than fiction, or fact so commonplace in
itself that I should pass without observing it in my daily walks.
For me the matter need have little intrinsic importance if it have
sufficient human interest and a reminiscent interest sufficient to
the personality, its historian.

It is the personality who differentiates, both as participant
and as reminiscent. Do not certain things, or types of things,
typically befall certain types of person? Sometimes this rule
seems to work ironically. I know a lady of sensitive organization
and delicate nurture, who leads the guarded conventional life
proper to her class, yet she seems to be fated to narrow escapes,
to be always upon the edge of adventure. A stray bullet barely
misses her; her street car comes to a stop just as an enormous
mass crashes down before it, which would surely have crushed
the car and her with it, but for the mere whim of the motorman 's
right hand. If lightning strikes she will be there to witness it
and will come off unhurt. But in general adventures befall the
adventurous as amours the amorous, for the obvious reason that
certain desires being central to a man organize his consciousness
and give tendencies to his conduct. Alert for opportunity he

66 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

is quickly aware and prompt to respond. As a man thinketh
so is he ; as a man desireth so it bef alleth him. Moreover, in any
presented opportunity a man will react according to his nature :
in a dangerous crisis the bold man will be bold, the cautious man
will be cautious, the hesitant man, hesitant. We do indeed choose
our experiences far more than the determinist will grant; our
coherent trait-groups mark our possible incidents selectively, to
incorporate them into our lives.

In reminiscence the experiencer, now become narrator, differ-
entiates again. The end, let us say, of any episode, that point
of achievement towards which the whole experience moved, may
have been hidden from him in the fact or only imperfectly
revealed. But now, in the telling, it is clearly before him, and
knowing that the end crowned all and that all the happenings
take their meaning from the end to be told he omits irrelevant
happenings almost automatically. Of the relevant remainder,
truth — the right relation among facts — demands that he alter
and adjust their proportions to their ends. He selects, then, and
adjusts not only the number of happenings working powerfully
for a given end, but the kind of thing suitable for a particular
and appropriate effect.

The personality thus refracts the experience twice, first
through his original dominant interest as a participator, then
through his reminiscent interest as a narrator. And each of
these interests acts upon the facts both positively and negatively.
Positively he is preoccupied with a certain interest in what
is happening to him, or in playing his active part in what
occurs, an interest marked possibly by eagerness and gladness,
dread or horror, or mere curiosity. This preoccupation induces
in turn a vagueness in observing things irrelevant or unimpor-
tant, sometimes a total blindness or negation of perception.
Again, weakness of memory actually serves the narrator of his
own history by that negative selection we call elimination. But
his best asset for the purposes of art is his positive interest in
remembering.6

s See Gardiner, op. oit.

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 67

Now remembering is in itself delightful. Is a sorrow's
crown of sorrows in remembering happier things? I doubt it.
I feel very certain that remembering the sorrowful thing is far
less painful than the sorrow itself, that the memory may often
mitigate the sorrow and may even compensate for it. Eliza-
beth Woodbridge has expressed this idea perfectly: "The love
of reminiscence," she says, "is deep-rooted in us. We do not
need to have length of years in order to possess it. All we need

to have is a consciousness of the past as past The charm

of memory lies, I think, in the quality which it gives things, at
once of intimacy and remoteness. The fascination to us of
recalling our past selves, our former surroundings, lies in our
sense that they are absolutely known to us, yet absolutely out
of our reach. We can recall places, houses, rooms, until every
detail lives again. We can turn from one thing to another and,
as we look, lo it is there ! It has a reality more poignant than

the hand that we touch or the flower that we smell This,

I fancy, was what Tennyson was thinking of when he called
the lotus land the land 'wherein it seemed always afternoon.'
In that land these magic moments were prolonged, and thus it
became the land of reminiscence. ' '7

What are the components of the personal interest in remem-
bering? There is, first of all, the moment of reminiscence; much
depends on that. My reported memories of a given episode vary
markedly with the occasions that recall them — audience, sur-
roundings, etc. — and with the moods of those occasions.8 I can
feel the charm of memory in many different ways concerning
the very same recollections, and my narrative in various reac-
tions is bound to reflect to some extent these differences. Then
there is my dominant interest in myself, a far more constant
thing than the former. If I am a Roman patrician, schooled

7 "The Novelist's Choice," Atlantic Monthly, October, 1912.

s"Mon souvenir des choses, quoique tres fidele, n'a jamais la certitude
admissible pour tous d 'un document. Plus il s 'affaiblit, plus il se transf orme
en devenant la propri6t6 de ma me'moire, et mieux il vaut pour 1'emploi
que je lui destine. A mesure que la forme exacte s'altere, il en vient une
autre, moitiee reelle et moiti^e imaginaire que je crois pr6f Arable. "
Fromentin — quoted by Ribot, Imagination Creatrioe, pp. 14, 15.

68 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

to self-command, shall I permit the mere eruption of a volcano
upon my villa to disturb my soul? No. If unable to sleep I
shall read my classic authors by the very flare of the conflagra-
tion, and flee at last only at the importunities of my panic-
stricken mother. Quite as important a factor as this is my per-
ception of the illustrative character of my experience, an interest
that makes me willing and glad to publish my private concerns.
I tell my story because it is rare or unique, and strikingly so;
or I tell my story because it is common and typical, and yet
my own.

These three, then, are the positive elements in remember-
ing; and they indicate a wider gamut of imaginative play in
reminiscence than seemed possible at first glance. Why, then,
are there so few literary masterpieces in autobiography? The
type ranges from jottings and anecdotes like Pepys' Diary,
broken if complete life-histories, to full-length, objective auto-
biographies like Franklin's or Gibbon's; from these to sub-
jective studies like St. Augustine's Confessions, or Rousseau's;
and from these to particular phases, or chapters, of a life, like
Two Years Before the Mast, Eothen, The Bible in Spain; from
these again to contemplative books, like Jeffries' The Story of
My Heart, in which introspective description suffuses the narra-
tion so that it blurs the specific incidents and all but stays the
narrative itself. Beyond this we have only one step to Amiel's
Journal Intime, and we have come full circle ; we have emerged
from autobiography in leaving narrative behind.

Here, surely, is liberty enough, too much liberty. That is
one reason why autobiography is the least artistic of the narrative
forms, because having so various ways to choose untrammeled,
the autobiographer is least sure of his method and rule. But
there is another reason, deeper lying and more cogent. In any
life-history there will be but two constants : the bent of person-
ality and the trend of incidents. But personality is constant only
in its sum-total and in its general aims. As for the incidents,
they may have no more definite trend or certainty of direction
than that their current flows in the winding channel of one

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 69

man 's life ; they are likely to be shifting and intermittent. The
constants, in other words, none too definite in themselves, are
deflected continually by variables of trait and of untoward inci-
dent.

If Aristotle is right, unity of action is the fundamental, the
organizing unity of narrative ; and unity of action or purpose is
generally wanting to autobiography. If a man 's life is not likely
to have unity of aim in prospect, it is not much more likely to
have unity of interpretation in retrospect. Henry Adams9 is
a significant exception. Of uncommon mind and with uncommon
opportunities for study and observation upon the conduct of
life, including a near view of the most momentous events as
well as intimate acquaintance with the most influential and sup-
posably rewarding personalities of the nineteenth century, in
Europe and America, he was thwarted at every turn, baffled as
to the meaning of events or fully aware of it only long after they
had passed — too long for drawing any useful lesson. His con-
clusion seems to be, "We — I, at least — learn from experience
that we learn nothing from experience," and this unity of aim
and of meaning gives a decided bent to the personality, and
even serves for unifying very heterogeneous experiences into one
trend. Still, this is unity only in the loose epic sense. To
not many a man does his past life seem a drama plotted with
rising and falling action, marked with crises, inciting moments,
moments of suspense, and pointed, perhaps, with dramatic irony.
Cardano's10 was one such. This extraordinary Italian of the
sixteenth century, his features marred before birth by attempted
abortion, his career the long struggle of a master spirit of scien-
tific passion, against adverse circumstances and against inner
forces too, had arrived at the pinnacle of fame. He returned
from Scotland laden with medical honors to find that his disso-
lute son had been indicted for poisoning an unworthy wife.
Knowing well his own partial responsibility for the son's down-

9 The Education of Henry Adams (Boston, 1918).

1° For an admirable summary and analysis of this generally inaccessible
book, see Mrs. Burr, op. cit., chap. VII.

70 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

fall he spent his hoardings in a vain attempt to save him from
the gallows. Beggared in fortune and socially outcast because
of his supposed complicity in the crime, Cardano endured an
unhappy existence to the end. Here is drama sufficient; and
some sense of the dramatic permeates the De Vita Propria Liber,
but the interest in science and the discursive habit cause the
writer's pen to stray; he is not artist enough to be the play-
wright of his own drama. The same is true of Mile. Montpensier
— la grande demoiselle, cousin german to Louis XIV — whose love
story, at least, would have furnished dramatic material had she
not preferred to fill her book with court gossip and with braggart
self-assertion. The drama of her life is diffused and episodic.

The reason, then, for the shortcoming of autobiography as
art is that the personality, however constant in totality, is apt
to manifest itself piecemeal, to reveal itself in numberless dis-
connected phases. It will follow byways, double and return,
linger too long over the unimportant or hurry by the important,
and what is even more fatal, take the wrong tone about itself.
Personality, I have already said, has to be taken in sum-total,
and at that has to be recovered by the reader and artificially
reconstructed. Accordingly it will blend with events only at
moments. Worse, even when personality fits incidents, and
character and career match, the self historian may be inadequate
to his task. This is not a promising set of conditions for artistic
excellence.

For these reasons, I believe, we find the best work, not in the
full length of an autobiography but in episodes or in special
aspects of life. Bussy de Kabutin, for instance, that miles
gloriosus of Louis XIV, tells a vivid tale of his campaigns and
amours, a tale as full of naughty gossip as of sword play, but
yet a tale devious, incoherent, and frustrated. But once im-
prisoned on a technical charge of disloyalty he bends his whole
attention on regaining his freedom and wiping away the stain
upon a soldier's honor; his heart is moved both with indignation
and outraged justice, and with passionate devotion to the sov-
ereign whose credulity has been abused. The episode is all alive,

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 71

and it has a motive definite enough, to blend personality with
events continuously. So too when young Rousseau, long tied to
the apron string of Madame de Warens, — "Mama," as he calls
her, though really they were lover and mistress — leaves her for
an interval to take a far journey and returns to find himself dis-
possessed, the episode proves manageable since it has singleness
of aim and so can blend personality with event in a way to
achieve unity of effect.

But even these episodes are exceptional and almost accidental.
We shall be much surer to find this happy fusion in those books
which confine themselves to some one chapter or aspect of a
man's experience such as had unity of purpose in the prospect,
or at least unity of meaning in the retrospect sufficient to satisfy
and to warm the reminiscent imagination. In such a case the
incidents will almost certainly have trend, not merely a drift
but a direction, and the personality will have bent in that it
will be organized for its specific purpose. For a man may have
many potentialities in general, upon which the particular chap-
ter of his life will make no demand, and only the coherent group
of used potentialities with marked inclination, may be said to
constitute a bent.

A roving young Scotchman of artistic gifts and training, his
frail body in search of health, his soul questing for adventure,
goes canoeing along the canals of Belgium and down the rivers
of France. His book is the record of his journeys and human
contacts, still more of his observations and impressions, most of
all of himself, "footloose, free of the open road, and looking to
the friction of event." On a certain day, spirits being high,
blood running at full gallop, the River Oise in flood, he had a
period of living, as he says, ' ' three to the minute. ' ' He had his
adventure too, which he paid for with a ducking and the im-
perilling of his life. The day's events shaped themselves in a
pattern of three figures : there was, first, the exhilarated paddling
of the morning, with its hints of terror lurking in the swollen
stream, to pluck up his courage ; there was the noonday content-
ment on the river bank, mellowed by the chime of church bells :

72 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

and, finally, there was the afternoon's misadventure and narrow
escape.

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun withdrew. The
piece was at an end; shadow and silence possessed the valley of the Oise.
We took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people who have sat out a
noble performance and return to work. The river was more dangerous here ;
it ran swifter, the eddies were more sudden and violent. All the way down
we had had our fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could be
shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that we must withdraw
the boats from the water and carry them round. But the chief sort of
obstacle was a consequence of the late high winds. Every two or three
hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually involved
more than another in its fall. Often there was free water at the end, and
we could steer round the leafy promontory and hear the water sucking and
bubbling among the twigs. Often, again, when the tree reached from
bank to bank, there was room, by lying close, to shoot through underneath,
canoe and all. Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunk
itself and pull the boats across; and sometimes, where the stream was too
impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to land and ' ' carry over. ' '
This made a fine series of accidents in the day's career, and kept us aware
of ourselves.

Shortly after our reembarkation, while I was leading by a long way,
and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in honor of the sun, the swift pace,
and the church bells, the river made one of its leonine pounces round a
corner, and I was aware of another fallen tree within a stonecast. I had
my backboard down in a trice, and aimed for a place where the trunk seemed
high enough above the water, and the branches not too thick to let me slip
below. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood with the universe
he is not in a temper to take great determinations coolly, and this, which
might have been a very important determination for me, had not been taken
under a happy star. The tree caught me about the chest, and while I was
yet struggling to make less of myself and get through, the river took the
matter out of my hands and bereaved me of my boat. The Arethusa swung
round broadside on, leaned over, ejected so much of me as still remained
on board, and, thus disencumbered, whipped under the tree, righted, and
went merrily away downstream.

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on to the tree to
which I was left clinging, but it was longer than I cared about. My
thoughts were of a grave and almost somber character, but I still clung to
my paddle. The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull
up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have all the water of the
Oise in my trousers' pockets. You can never know, till you try it, what a
dead pull a river makes against a man. Death himself had me by the
heels; for this was his last ambuscade, and he must now join personally
in the fray. And still I held to my paddle. At last I dragged myself on

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 73

to my stomach on the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled
sense of humor and injustice. A poor figure I must have presented to
Burns upon the hilltop with his team. But there was the paddle in my
hand. On my tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed :
"He clung to his paddle."

The Cigarette had gone past awhile before; for, as I might have
observed, if I had been a little less pleased with the universe at the
moment, there was a clear way round the tree top at the farther side. He
had offered his services to haul me out, but, as I was then already on my
elbows, I had declined and sent him downstream after the truant Arethusa.
The stream was too rapid for a man to mount with one canoe, let alone
two, upon his hands, so I crawled along the trunk to shore, and proceeded
down the meadows by the riverside. I was so cold that my heart was sore.
I had now an idea of my own why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could
have given any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked, facetiously, that
he thought I was ' ' taking exercise " as I drew near, until he made out for
certain that I was only twittering with cold. I had a rubdown with a
towel, and donned a dry suit from the india-rubber bag. But I was not
my own man again for the rest of the voyage. I had a queasy sense that
I wore my last dry clothes upon my body. The struggle had tired me ; and,
perhaps, whether I knew it or not, I was a little dashed in spirit. The
devouring element in the universe had leaped out against me, in this green
valley quickened by a running stream. The bells were all very pretty in
their way, but I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music.
Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, indeed? and look so
beautiful all the time! Nature's good humor was only skin deep, after all.

There was still a long way to go by the winding course of the stream,
and darkness had fallen, and a late bell was ringing in Origny Sainte-
Benoite when we arrived.1*

Take another case in which the mere course of events in the
chapter, or phase of life, is much less defined and straightfor-
ward, but in which the very uncommon experiences match even
more perfectly the very uncommon and highly poetic nature of
the writer. An English schoolboy, an orphan ; precocious though
modest ; sensitive, shy, though friendly ; dreamy, irresponsible,
pure in heart, becomes homesick and unhappy; he determines
to run away from school.

It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson's (and what cannot often be said of
his remarks, it is a very feeling one), that we never do anything consciously
for the last time (of things, that is, which we have long been in the habit
of doing) without sadness of heart. This truth I felt deeply, when I came

11 Stevenson, An Inland Voyage (1878).

74 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

to leave [Manchester], a place which I did not love, and where I had not
been happy. On the evening before I left [Manchester] for ever, I grieved
when the ancient and lofty schoolroom resounded with the evening service,
performed for the last time in my hearing; and at night, when the muster-
roll of names was called over, and mine (as usual) was called first, I stepped
forward, and, passing the head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to
him, and looked earnestly in his face, thinking to myself, 'He is old and
infirm, and in this world I shall not see him again.' I was right: I never
did see him again, nor ever shall. He looked at me complacently, smiled
goodnaturedly, returned my salutation (or rather, my valediction), and we
parted (though he knew it not) for ever. I could not reverence him intel-
lectually: but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed me
many indulgences : and I grieved at the thought of the mortification I
should inflict upon him.

I dressed myself, took my hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the
room. For the last year and a half this room had been my 'pensive citadel ' :
here I had read and studied through all the hours of night: and, though
true it was, that for the latter part of this time I, who was framed for love
and gentle affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness, during the strife
and fever of contention with my guardian; yet, on the other hand, as a boy,
so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I
could not fail to have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general
dejection. I wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table,
and other familiar objects, knowing too certainly, that I looked upon them
for the last time. Whilst I write this, it is eighteen years ago; and yet,
at this moment, I see distinctly as if it were yesterday, the lineaments and
expression of the object on which I fixed my parting gaze: it was a picture

of the lovely , which hung over the mantelpiece; the eyes and mouth

of which were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant with
benignity, and divine tranquility, that I had a thousand times laid down
my pen, or my book, to gather consolation from it, as a devotee from his
patron saint. Whilst I was yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of [Man-
chester] clock proclaimed that it was four o 'clock. I went up to the picture,
kissed it, and then gently walked out and closed the door for ever!

After a sojourn in Wales the boy comes to London practically
penniless. One night in a starving condition he suffers an
attack of excruciating stomach pains from which he had surely
died but for the divine pity and succor of a street girl, Ann,
with whom, poor waif, he had become friends in all innocence.
Anxious to succor her likewise he sets out to seek acquaintances
in the country who may lend him the money wherewith to help

1922] Wells: The Art of Narrative in Autobiography 75

his benefactress, engaging to return on a certain day to a certain
place. Unhappily he forgets the place of meeting, forgets even
to ask Ann's true name, and so goes seeking her through many
an evening, through many years, in vain. Years afterwards
when the sufferings and privations of this early period had
brought on a chronic illness, so that he had sought relief in drugs,
and the habit had fixed itself upon him — years afterwards his
desire was granted him in an opiate dream.

I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May, that it was Easter
Sunday, and as yet very early in the morning. I was standing, as it seemed
to me, at the door of my own cottage. Eight before me lay the very scene
which could really be commanded from that situation, but exalted, as was
usual, and solemnized by the power of dreams. There were the same moun-
tains, and the same lovely valley at their feet; but the mountains were
raised to more than Alpine height, and there was interspace far larger
between them of meadows and forest lawns; the hedges were rich with
white roses; and no living creature was to be seen, excepting that in the
green church-yard there were cattle tranquilly reposing upon the verdant
graves, and particularly round about the grave of a child whom I had
tenderly loved, just as I had really beheld them, a little before sunrise in
the same summer, when that child died. I gazed upon the well-known
scene, and I said aloud, (as I thought) to myself, "It yet wants much
of sun-rise; and it ia Easter Sunday; and that is the day on which they
celebrate the first fruits of resurrection. I will walk abroad; old griefs
shall be forgotten to-day; for the air is cool and still, and the hills are
high, and stretch away to Heaven; and the forest-glades are as quiet as
the church-yard; and with the dew I can wash the fever from my forehead,
and then I shall be unhappy no longer. ' '

And I turned, as if to open my garden gate; and immediately I saw
upon the left a scene far different; but which yet the power of dreams had
reconciled into harmony with the other. The scene was an Oriental one ;
and there also it was Easter Sunday and very early in the morning. And
at a vast distance were visible, as a stain upon the horizon, the domes and
cupolas of a great city — an image or faint abstraction, caught perhaps in
childhood from some picture of Jerusalem. And not a bowshot from me,
upon a stone and shaded by Judean palms, there sat a woman; and I
looked; and it was — Ann! She fixed her eyes upon me earnestly; and I
said to her at length : " So then I have found you at last. ' ' I waited : but
she answered me not a word. Her face was the same as when I saw it last,
and yet again how different! Seventeen years ago, when the lamplight fell
upon her face, as for the last time I kissed her lips (lips, Ann, that to me
were not polluted), her eyes were streaming with tears: the tears were now
wiped away; she seemed more beautiful than she was at that time, but in

76 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

all other points the same, and not older. Her looks were tranquil, but with
unusual solemnity of expression; and I now gazed upon her with some
awe; but suddenly her countenance grew dim, and, turning to the moun-
tains, I perceived vapours rolling between us; in a moment, all had van-
ished; thick darkness came on; and, in the twinkling of an eye, I was far
away from mountains, and by lamp-light in Oxford-street, walking again
with Ann — just as we walked seventeen years before, when we were both
children.i2

These familiar passages are examples of the autobiographic
art at the top of its possibilities, wherein personality is filled
with event, event saturated with personality. They are highly
exceptional. As I began by saying, we read autobiography if it
be vital, art or no art. "We demand of our author that he tell
the facts as he remembers them, discharging him of all other
obligation to the record. If reminiscence retouch the whole with
an imaginative light we need not complain. As for interpreta-
tion, it is what he pleases. Perhaps we like his book the better
if he be philosophically individual, and in matters of taste,
personal even to the point of oddity. With what art he can com-
mand let him be sincerely and interestingly himself, our demand
will extend "not a frown farther."

12 De Quincey, The Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1821).

TWELVE ANDAMANESE SONGS

BENJAMIN P. KURTZ

TWELVE ANDAMANESE SONGS

BENJAMIN P. KURTZ

By their introductory and general studies of the beginnings
of poetry, Gummere, Schmidt, Ridgeway, Mackenzie, and a few
others1 have opened the way for specific investigation in the songs,
stories, and dramatic performances of each of the simpler peoples.
But at first this specific study must perforce be largely descrip-
tive and textual in character, for the fragmentary, inaccurate,
and confused condition of much of the material available for
examination makes indispensable a careful, preliminary checking
of information, texts, and translations.

Every one who has attempted to study at second hand the
emotional and imaginative utterances of the simpler peoples has
commented upon the incomplete and misleading reports — by
travelers, explorers, missionaries, and resident European officials
— with which he has had to deal. The initial difficulty of secur-
ing from the savages themselves accurate accounts of their beliefs,
customs, legends, and songs ; the probability that the fragmentary
results of first-hand inquiry have been rendered still more unsat-
isfactory by the inaccuracy of the reporter; the certainty that
many translations from the native tongues are highly colored or
sentimentalized: these handicaps are generally recognized. But
what is not sufficiently realized is the substantial inaccuracy of
many translations by experienced and careful observers who are
themselves proficient in the native languages with which they are
working. Because they are interested not in the actual, aesthetic
form of the song or story, but rather in its general content — its

1 For problems of study and bibliography see Gayley and Kurtz, Lyric,
Epic, and Allied Types of Poetry (Ginn & Co., 1920), pp. 369-374; cf. pp.
141-145, 149-182, 591-596, 605-609, 615-668; also Gayley and Scott,
Methods and Materials of Lit, Crit., Bases in Aestlietics (Ginn & Co., 1899).
pp. 266-274.

80 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

meaning in relation to some particular research in the customs
or beliefs of the tribe — these reporters have not seldom yielded
to the temptation of offering as a translation what really is a
summary of the original or even an expanded explanation of it.
The temptation to indulge in the latter is especially strong in
the case of songs, for most "primitive" lyrics are so abrupt,
allusive, and brief that their meaning has to be developed and
explained. The Andamanese, for example, have a brief song
(II, below) the actual form of which is fairly well represented
as follows:

By beetles my ears are rasped,
By cicadas my ears are rasped O.
My ears are rasped O and buzzing O.
My ears are rasped 0 and "buzzing 0.

But from this faithful translation the complete meaning of the
lyric would never be guessed. The Andamanese audience, from
certain familiar allusions, understands at once that the composer
is telling why he failed to secure a wild pig in a recent hunting
expedition. To make the matter clear the British collector offers
the following expanded, explanatory "translation":

The beetles and cicadas are making such a noise in the jungle that
my ears are deafened and I cannot hear the sound of pigs. My ears are
deafened, and there is a singing in them.

Now it is just such substitution of explanation and para-
phrase for accurate translation that makes analyses of poetic
form and investigations in development well-nigh impossible.
Paraphrase, indeed, obscures parallelism in meaning — the chief
formal trait of most of these songs. To detect parallelism and
discover its varieties — complete or incomplete, synonymous, anti-
thetical, or incremental — the investigator must know not only the
meaning of each word or agglutinative compound in the original,
but also how each word or compound is made up — what is root,
prefix, infix, and suffix. Here is a case in point. In the first
chapter of his Beginnings of Poetry Gummere quotes "two"

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Sonfys 81

Cherokee songs of friendship, with translations by a " Mr. Hicks,
a Cherokee of half blood. ' '

Can, nal, li, eh, ne-was-tu.
A friend you resemble.

Chorus. Yai, ne, noo, way. E, noo, way, ha.

Ti, nai, tau, na, cla, ne-was-tu.
Brothers I think we are.

And the chorus as before. A glance at the original verses reveals
the fact that these "two" songs are related in form, perhaps as
two stanzas of one song, or as two similar songs composed at
the same time or at different times. They not only have the
same chorus, but the compound ne-was-tu appears in the same
position in each. Now the point to be observed is that the trans-
lation obscures this parallelism, and thereby misses a salient
characteristic of the original. Moreover, to appreciate the full
effect of this salient trait one must understand each part of this
compound. Finally, until we have a faithful word-for-word
translation we cannot determine whether or not any antithetical
or synonymous parallelism is contained in the Can, nal, li, eh of
the first and the Ti, nai, tau, na, cla of the second line. Professor
Gummere calls Mr. Hicks' 'translation "interlinear"; properly
speaking, it is nothing of the kind. To base any extensive ac-
count of primitive songs upon translations like this would be
unscientific.

Many other examples of unsatisfactory versions — including
"interlinear" and professed literal translations — by writers fa-
miliar with the original languages might be offered. The more
carefully the original texts are compared with the translations
the less satisfactory do the latter appear. Washington Matthews,
who lived for years among the Navajo Indians, knew their lan-
guage, and compiled a Navajo dictionary (still in MS.),' pub-
lished many of their songs both in the original and in translation ;
but even his versions, as checked by his own dictionary or that
of the Franciscan Fathers, are not always verbally exact or suffi-
ciently representative of formal characteristics. Miss Frances

82 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Densmore, the accomplished student of Chippewa and Teton
Sioux music, is so deeply interested in the musical aspect of
Indian song that her translations, even though she has had the
assistance of educated natives, are demonstrably imperfect in
respect of the diction and syntax of the original.

Of course some interlinear versions — especially those by
anthropologists with philological training — are entirely satisfac-
tory, or nearly so. Versions by such men as Dorsey, Boas, and
Goddard leave little to be desired. But the mass of our materials
is not authoritative.

In the light of such facts as these it is easy to point out what
should be done in a descriptive and textual way before the student
of the beginnings of poetry can proceed to systematic analysis
of the materials available. Such texts as we have should be
checked, edited, and re-translated by specially qualified persons
with the assistance of trustworthy members of the native tribes
concerned. A ' ' specially qualified person ' ' would be a scholar
who had been trained in philological research and who had ac-
quired at first hand his knowledge of a given language. Investi-
gations should be carried on among the natives themselves, ' ' on
the spot."

But these "shoulds" are a counsel of perfection. Desirable
as such procedure is, it is seldom possible, and as time flies the
simpler peoples perish. Therefore, the student of the simpler
poetries either must wait until the counsel of perfection is real-
ized— and the probabilities are against its ever being realized in
a large measure — or he must himself do what can be done under
the circumstances. In respect of a given original and a suspicious
translation he may attempt: (1) by means of a thorough study
of the proper dictionaries, grammars, and other apparatus to
separate each word or compound of the original into its parts —
prefix, infix, root, suffix, etc. — as in a literal, interlinear trans-
lation, and to explain the function of each part; (2) by means
of this word-analysis and interlinear translation to check the
inaccuracies, unwarrantable expansions, and omissions of the
given version, or to produce a new version, keeping as close to

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 83

the form of the original as the genius of his own language will
anywise permit.

This possible task is in many cases made comparatively easy
by the general guidance which the purported translation affords.
Such a ' ' translation, ' ' for instance, as the expanded explanation
of the Andamanese song given above would be a material help,
and many scientifically unsatisfactory versions give even more
help of a general sort. "Without this guidance the task might
well be vague and hopeless, but with it the problem is roughly
comparable, say, to working out a literal translation of a passage
of Homer or Dante by means of a dictionary, a grammar, and
a more or less free "pony." Of course it may be objected that
the genius of an agglutinative ' ' simple ' ' language is very strange
to the language-sense of a European. But though many of the
tongues with which the investigator may be concerned are com-
plex in respect of word-forms, most of them are rather simple
in principle, and a little study of one, under competent guidance,
goes a long way toward supplying a language-sense for others.

That mistakes in word-analysis and translation will be made
in the work proposed goes without saying. But four consider-
ations will largely offset the embarrassment of these inevitable
errors. An abbreviated, expanded, or otherwise too free transla-
tion that has been checked and supplemented in the way described
will measurably approach a complete and accurate representation
of the original in meaning and form, and as such will be prefer-
able as a basis for inductive studies. Moreover, just as to the
making of critical editions of texts in the unknown or little
known languages of antiquity many scholars and generations of
scholars have contributed, so it may be hoped that the attempt
to initiate study of these less important texts will lead to further
criticism by qualified students, and to some increase in the philo-
logical apparatus pertaining to the task. By the very conditions
of the study perfect translations are beyond the hope of the
pioneer, but he need not therefore be discouraged. If his errors
lead to corrections he has been of service. Again, if each text
is fully and honestly annotated the amount of error will be

84 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

minimized. To each interlinear translation should be attached
extensive critical notes, comprising a precise and explicit account
of the authority on which each word-analysis is based, clear dis-
tinctions between well-grounded analyses and "guesses" (with
the reasons for each "guess"), and frank confession of the
difficulties that have proved insurmountable, of the problems of
word-study and syntax that are yet to be mastered. The amount
of error that may creep into a treatment as candid as this need
not be a serious deterrent. Finally, the detailed explanation
of the form and function of each word and compound will make
it feasible for any student who wishes to study a given song or
story in its relation to his particular problem of research to gain,
with comparatively little effort, a fairty intimate acquaintance
with the original text — a very important desideratum.

A prerequisite, then, for specific study of 'the beginnings of
' ' literature ' ' among the lower races is the critical preparation
of a series of original texts and approximately word-for-word
translations, annotated and emended as indicated above. So far
as possible the materials we have from each of the simpler peoples
should be treated thus, until by accumulation of these textual
studies we obtain a critical corpus, which will afford,, in turn, the
basis for further analytic and comparative study of processes of
composition, of the differentiation, development, and function of
special forms or types, and of the technique of action, situation,
plot and character, diction and parallelism, rhythm and metre.
It is highly desirable, moreover, that to each special collection
there be prefixed a digest, with due indication of agreement and
disagreement of authorities, of our information concerning the
origin, composition, and occasion, the persistence, distribution,
and transformation, and the method of delivery of the sort of
compositions represented in the study, as well as a brief estimate
of the cultural conditions or level of the tribe or people concerned.
A bibliography of the more important works to be consulted
should also be added, annotated to give the student some idea
of the content and value of each work in its bearing upon the
general culture or poetic compositions of the people.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 85

The field of this project is very wide. If we consider only one
division of it, the songs of the simpler peoples, we shall find,
on a very rough estimate, that there are, exclusive of entirely
satisfactory editions by a few anthropologists and other scholars,
between two and three thousand songs which can be and ought
to be edited as has been proposed. We possess many songs, in
both the original languages and translations, of the lower races
of Africa, Australia, North and South America, Asia, and
Oceania (consider, e.g., the hundreds of Maori songs alone),
which must be edited as critically as possible before students of
literature can study them systematically.

To render this proposal clearer an attempt is here made, by
way of example, to study the texts of twelve Andamanese songs
contained in M. V. Portman's Notes on the Languages of the
South Andaman Group of Tribes.2 But it must be understood
that what is presented here is only a preliminary sketch for a
more thorough and extensive study which is in course of prepar-
ation and which will include all the available songs and stories
of this people, as well as a complete summary of our informa-
tion concerning the general culture and poetic practice of the
Andamanese.

2 Published by the Office of the Supt. of Government Printing, India
(Calcutta, 1898). M. V. Portman, for several years the officer in charge
of the Andamanese, made a careful study of the dialects of the South
Andaman group of tribes, compiling a grammar and a comparative vocab-
ulary with extensive explanatory notes. These, together with fairly
copious examples of Andamanese prose and verse, he published in the
volume noted above. His work is painstaking, accurate, and authoritative.
His intimate acquaintance with the natives and their language and his
constant endeavor to check all his information by comparison of several
first-hand reports offset the disadvantage, which he himself admits, that
he is not a trained philologist. To the thirteen songs included in this
•work very little attention has been paid by students of the beginnings of
poetry. For reasons of space I have had to omit consideration of the last
song, which is somewhat longer than the others. The present account of
Andamanese culture is based for the most part upon Portman and E. H.
Man (reference below).

86 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

THE ANDAMANESE

The Andaman Islands, situated in the Bay of Bengal, west
of the lower strip of Burma and one hundred and twenty miles
from the nearest point of the mainland, have been inhabited
from a remote past, perhaps since the Pleistocene period and
certainly since the Neolithic Age, by a people whose racial affini-
ties are obscure. The Andamanese are generally classed as of
negrito stock and it is probable that they are related to the
negritos who once inhabited the southeast portion of Asia and
certain adjacent islands, and who, probably, were the ancestors
of the Semangs of the Malay Peninsula and the Aetas of the
Philippines. The kitchen middens on the Andaman Islands are
of great age — some of them are more than fifteen feet high — and
the fact that identical forms of pottery and stone implements are
found at the surface and the base of the middens implies that
the aborigines have not varied greatly in culture from age to age.
Probably never numerous, the natives have been so disastrously
affected by contact with civilization that in 1883 they numbered
but four thousand souls, and their early extermination was antici-
pated. Eighteen years later that number was cut in half.

Their culture is so very simple that the Andamanese have
been regarded by anthropologists as among the most primitive
of existing human beings. They belong to the "collecting" and
lower-hunting peoples. They live on edible roots, wild fruits
and honey, molluscs, turtle, fish, the larvae of insects, and
certain small jungle animals, notably the wild pig. Food is so
easily procured that nomadism is restricted. Domesticated ani-
mals were unknown until the Europeans imported dogs, which
are now greatly prized for hunting. Agriculture was also intro-
duced by strangers and the natives still regard it as a degrading
occupation. Their habitations, even the most permanent, are
of the roughest. The art of producing fire they seem never to
have known, and probably they first obtained fire in the form of
glowing coals from some neighboring volcano. But they have
developed great skill in preserving it.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 87

Their life, socially and morally, is far from complicated.
The family is recognized. There is a marked equality of husband
and wife, and considerable mutual affection. Political organi-
zation is of the simplest, a division into tribes and septs, and
within the tribe a primitive communism modified by the more
or less nominal authority of the chief. Succession to the office
of chief is by popular choice, and the minority is always free to
transfer its tribal allegiance. The individual takes the "law"
into his own hands, but disputes are often settled through the
influence of the chief, who, however, has no authority to exact
obedience. Childish fits of temper, to which the natives are sub-
ject and which usually wear themselves out in a capricious de-
struction of property, go unpunished. Some murders are
avenged, but many a murderer succeeds in frightening off his
fellows, or has the good sense to leave the village until popular
excitement has died down, when he may return with impunity.
Ordeals, covenants, and oaths to guarantee performance of con-
tract seem not to be known to this primitive folk.

Their morality has been lowered by intercourse with civilized
peoples, but in their isolated and peaceful state they seem to
have been modest, self-reliant, candid, and rather veracious; de-
voted and tender in their care of the infirm, the aged, and the
very young; and sedulous to observe the duties of hospitality.
The women always wear aprons, and are modest to the point of
prudery. The men, unless prevented by the whites, go naked
except for certain ornaments. Commercial dishonesty, so far as
it exists, is an acquired trait. The Andamanese are little given
to trading among themselves. Their transactions are in the
nature of a generous making of presents for which equivalent
gifts are expected. Quarrels arise when an inadequate return is
offered. Greed for the material goods of life is rare, they are not
given to accumulation of possessions, and property is not handed
down from generation to generation. In warfare, cunning and
treachery are relied upon and heroic courage is lacking; but
cowards are ridiculed.

88 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

The Andamanese have the bow and arrow, the spear, and the
harpoon; the objects made and used by them hardly amount to
one hundred items. Most of their manufactured articles are so
simple and so easily replaced that little care is taken to preserve
them. The weapons, tools, and other slight property of a given
individual may be used by his relatives ; such important articles
as a cooking pot, a canoe, or a sounding board (used for marking
time in the dance), when the owner is not using them, are "looked
upon somewhat in the light of public property by members of the
same community."

In the possession of a knowledge of simple forms of pottery
they are superior to the Australians, Tasmanians, and Fuegiaus.
The middens prove, moreover, that this knowledge is by no means
limited to recent times. Pots are made by the layer-and-scraping
method. Designs (plant and animal forms are never imitated)
are scratched on with a stick. The Andamanese are still in the
stone age. Natural forms of stones and shells are used as tools ;
shaped implements are of the simplest. Iron they now secure
from the British penal colony at Port Blair, but their only method
of working it is by hammering cold pieces. Basketry and the
weaving of mats are understood, but only in simple patterns;
leather work is unknown.

Of the mental capacity of the Andamanese it may be said
that in youth a certain precocity is displayed under foreign
instruction, but in its natural, untutored state the intellect is
largely dormant. A curious, inventive race the Andamanese are
not, but among them are individuals of penetrative mind, strong
will, and vivid imagination. As a people they "care little for
abstract ideas and their life is absorbed in their material wants
and pleasures, regarding which they generally converse. If you
see a number of Andamanese collected about one who is telling
a story, you find that story to be nearly always about a pig or
turtle hunt. They seem never to tire of hearing these stories,
though there is a great sameness about them (like English fox-
hunters discussing their ' runs ' ) , and the stories are related with
much acting and gesture."3

s M. V. Portman, op. cit., p. 32.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 89

Considerable interest and a spirit of emulation are displayed
in making weapons and other articles. Hour after hour may
be spent by the natives in the persevering, monotonous toil of
shaping arrow heads and spear heads to suit their taste, or in
improving the curve of a bow, even when there is no necessity,
immediate or prospective, to act as a stimulus. Yet they do not
preserve weapons and utensils of superior workmanship for
private use : they frequently make presents of the best that they
possess.4

They have no writing of any sort, no signs or tallies, no
recognized standards of weights and measures. Their only spe-
cific numerals are one and two. Beyond "two" the idea of
quantity is exceedingly vague, though the more intelligent, by
using fingers and nose as counters, manage to indicate specific
numbers up to ten. Their geographical knowledge, until the
advent of the British, was entirely local. They knew nothing
of the coast of Burma, let alone the rest of the world. Voyagers
who from time to time came to their shores were regarded as the
spirits of deceased ancestors returning from some small neigh-
boring island of the dead to visit former haunts and friends.

They delight in multiplying terms to designate the various
aspects of life in which they are interested. Thirteen periods
of day and night are distinguished and named; three main
seasons and twenty minor seasons (named after trees which
flower in succession), four phases of each lunation, the four
points of the compass, four winds, and three kinds of clouds are
recognized. Of their language something is said below.

Of Andamanese superstitions, myths, and legends I have not
space to speak. Suffice to say that the superstitions are simple,
the expression of a timorous, childlike, and good-hearted people ;
not particularly numerous or ' ' suggestive of an insane asylum ' ' ;
etiological and animistic in character; most of them easily to
be accounted for as natural reactions to experience. Conduct

4 E. H. Man, "On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands"
in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland,
XII, 94.

90 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

is shaped according to the warnings and advice received in
dreams. Certain individuals who are prolific of dreams are
credited with supernatural power (cf. Song X, below). There
are no forms of worship, no religious rites ; there is no devotion
to trees, stones, celestial bodies, or other objects; but a rather
complete etiology of creation, of the heavenly bodies, of the
larger aspects of nature, of life, death, and resurrection, of fire
and the arts has been developed. The creating agent is an im-
mortal being, Puluga, who is like fire, but is now invisible. He
created everything except the evil spirits. He lives in a large
stone house in the sky, with a wife whom he made for himself.
He is omniscient during the day ; he eats and drinks and sleeps
much during the dry season, but when he js angry he comes out
of his house and growls and blows and hurls burning faggots.
He has many children, but only one son. The stories told about
him show Christian influence.

From these facts concerning the Andamanese and their way
of living, certain inferences which have an important bearing
upon the study of their poetry may be drawn. Andamanese
culture, certainly, is not "rising," or "mounting"; it shows no
vitality in expanding to meet new demands. The race is dis-
appearing. On the other hand, such evidence as we have of its
past indicates that this culture has always been so simple, so
close to an irreducible minimum, that there has been little op-
portunity for the loss of significant characteristics. We are
therefore justified, or, at least, fairly well justified, in regarding
both the material and intellectual features of this culture as the
products of a very simple but not decadent state of savagery.5
In turn, then, we may infer that the rhythmic utterances of the
Andamanese illustrate at least one sort of poetry that is produced
at an early stage of man's development.

s This remark is limited to the culture described in this article, i.e., to
the culture as observed by Man and Portman. What may have become
of the Andamanese in the last twenty years is another matter.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 91

ANDAMANESE POETEY

The narrow consciousness of the Andamanese, the simpleness
and limited range of their mental processes, and most of their
chief interests, are reflected in the content and form of their
songs. They sing most frequently of the exciting events of their
daily life — pig hunting, fishing, travels and incidental adven-
tures, and fighting ; and there are many songs about the making
of weapons, boats, and other objects. Both Man and Portman
testify that the Andaman islanders have no reflective, religious,
or love lyrics ; their ' ' nursery ' ' songs seem to be limited to lull-
abies. Portman definitely states that legends are not transmitted
in rhythmical form, but Man speaks of songs "connected with
myths" (presumably incidental lyrics) and of magical songs.
Special ceremonial or rite compositions are lacking: differenti-
ation of performance at ceremonial occasions, if there is any, is
limited to the dance.

But the songs that are built about the events of daily life
are very numerous in spite of the limited number of subjects.
Every one composes. A man who could not make a song would
be looked down upon. Even children have their own songs.
Women occasionally make and sing lyrics, which, though hardly
equal in power, are yet similar in every way to those made by
men. Each person sings his own song. To sing the song of
another is a breach of etiquette that may lead to a fight, but
after the death of a man his songs may be sung by another
member of his tribe. When a man wishes to make a new song,
<lhe waits till he feels inspired to do so, and will then, when
alone and engaged in some occupation, sing to himself until he
has hit on a solo and refrain which take his fancy." He tries
his song over and over again, carefully improving it to his taste.
For several days, indeed, in some secluded spot of the jungle or
the shore where he is fashioning a weapon or hollowing out a
canoe the composer may continue to repeat and reshape his song.
Portman emphatically asserts that this is the method of compo-
sition ; he maintains that statements which stress an impromptu
method are erroneous.

92 University of California Publications in Modern, Philology [Vol. 11

Regarding the origin of this habit of composing songs the
Andamanese have no traditions. They believe that "the 'An-
cestors' from time immemorial used to compose and sing songs
similar in rhythm and subject to those composed to-day. . . .
As songs by composers who have been distinguished men are
sung by others of their tribe after their death, we thus get a
few so-called ancient songs, which, however, are not really very
old, and are of little value, not being different from the ordinary
songs of the present day."6 There is no evidence of communal
composition.

Let us return to the composer. When he is satisfied with his
solo and refrain he sings them at the campfire, where the vil-
lagers are collected for their nightly dance. If his composition
catches the popular ear he may repeat it on other evenings, and
may even keep it in mind to be sung at some future jeg, or
congregation of several tribes for entertainment. "The singer
chosen to repeat his song at such an occasion gains lasting recog-
nition for his accomplishment." Songs are occasionally sung
at other times and places, by small companies, but without the
accompaniment of dance. The usual time is the evening; the
usual place, the hard-tamped bulum (dancing ground) near the
campfire.

At one end of the bulum the composer takes his place, his
foot resting on the sounding board, ready to beat out the time
for the dance. Amid general silence he sings his solo, very likely
in a falsetto. Then his voice drops an octave as he delivers the
refrain. If the listeners catch the refrain they sing it at once,
but if not, the soloist repeats it two or three times until they
are able to sing it in chorus. "The dance commences with the
refrain being accompanied by a clapping of hands and thighs,
and the stamping of the soloist's foot on the sounding board. The

s M. V. Portman, op. cit., p. 166. Portman does not state in detail how
he collected the songs printed below, nor does he inform us whether any
of them are "old." But we know that he got them direct from the
natives. There is no indication in them of foreign (European or Asiatic)
influence.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 93

time of this clapping and stamping is

j J* ^ $ ~-

but the time marked by the stamping of the dancers' feet is

* * 4 J J^ JEE After the refrain has been repeated about ten

times the chorus pause to take breath, but the clapping of hands
and thighs and the stamping on the sounding board continue;
when the chorus have recovered their breath they again repeat
the refrain about ten times. The soloist will then repeat the
song, and the refrain will be taken up again as before ; and this
may be repeated as many as six times, if the song has been sung
before and is known ; when,, if it has been a success, the soloist
sings a line which appears to be meaningless, and the chorus
answers with another line, also meaningless, which is sung once,
and the time beats then alter to a confused rattle, and the song
ends. If it has not been approved, it will die away after one or
two repetitions and this peculiar ending will not be given. . . .
At the conclusion of a song the same soloist may sing another
song under the same conditions as the first, or he may be relieved
by another soloist. Such songs and dances, with changes of
soloist, are kept up all night. The work of the soloist is hard,
as besides singing he has to give the time by stamping on the
sounding board, but the position is a proud one. ' '7

Portman also observes that if the soloist in the middle of his
performance happens to forget his lines he repeats two or three
' words, ' ' having regard to time and tune only and not in the least
to sense," until the rest comes to mind. The music, consisting
of monotonous phrases of two or three notes, lends itself to this
universal device of the ' ' stumped ' ' reciter. It is also interesting
to learn that the Andamanese have no method of taking breath
in a song, and that a soloist who loses his breath in the middle
of a long, agglutinative compound upon recovering begins a
word or two back of the one where he stopped, so that he may
not spoil the rhythm ! Under these conditions it is easy to under-

M. V. Portman, op. cit., pp. 167-168.

94 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

stand how a solo may be prolonged by repetition of phrases, quite
regardless of the meaning. "Andamanese songs," says Port-
man, ' ' occasionally remind me of Mr. Gilbert 's motto on the title
page of the Bab Ballads, 'Much sound and little sense.' '

Men, women, and children join in the chorus. According to
one authority, the men sing in unison, some women and the
children in falsetto, and the rest of the women in a minor sixth
above the men. No indication of the subject of a song is given
by the rhythm, accent, or intonation of delivery, and if the ob-
server has not a knowledge of the language he is quite unable
to guess what is being described. Gesticulation and acting are
not accompaniments of song, though they constitute the chief
part of story telling.

''The formal construction of all Andamanese songs is the
same, though the subject differs." To a short solo (seldom more
than five "lines," and generally only three) succeeds a brief
refrain, which is usually a mere repetition of the last ' ' line ' ' or
of its concluding words. The refrain may begin in the middle
of a "word." No attempt will be made in this sketch to analyze
in detail the construction (line length, rhythm, accents, assonance,
rhyme, etc.) of solo and refrain, but it should be noted that mean-
ing, grammatical form, and syntax are frequently sacrificed to
rhythm, especially in the refrain. Indeed, to satisfy his sense
of rhythm the composer may so mutilate his words that he is
obliged to explain the refrain to his audience. Man, however,
appears to magnify the amount of poetic license; or, rather,
what he says on this point applies primarily to the refrain.
Portman maintains, with reason, that the construction of the
sentences in Andamanese poetry is much the same as in ordinary
conversation, that the roots are altered very little, and that, in
general, only the suffixes and prefixes are omitted and altered
as the rhythm requires. A poetic dialect can hardly be said to
exist, though certain roots appear in poetry which do not often
occur in ordinary speech. Man 's statement that a distinct poetic
dialect does exist is based upon a misconception either of what
a poetic dialect is or of the nature of Andamanese poetic license.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 95

Of the brief, abrupt, and allusive character of the lyrics of
the Andamanese an example has already been given. Like other
primitive poets, an Andamanese in composing a song is prone
to utter emotion without indicating its stimulus, to describe an
action without explaining its cause or purpose, and, in general,
to express himself so obliquely that only a native, and not always
even he, can be sure of the meaning of the composition. More
often than not the real motive of a lyric, the reason for its
existence, is hid in the assumptions and associations upon which
the song is built, in the inferences the native audience will draw,
in situations their imagination will supply, — in allusions and im-
plications quite beyond the power of an outsider to understand.
The inclination to express one's feeling without explaining its
source we have all experienced, and therefore we can appreciate
the abruptness of these lyrics, especially after some one has ex-
plained the implied idea or adventure! "We must remember,
too, if our sympathy is to be complete, that the experiences which
are the source and setting of our native's emotions are so limited
in number and so frequently the subject of song and story that
there is no need whatever of specifying them for an Andamanese
audience. In most of the pig hunting, turtle hunting, and
dugong fishing songs that are given below, for example, there is
no mention of pig, or turtle, or dugong. From the way a song
begins, from some descriptive touch, or from the nature of its
emotional appeal, the audience soon divines that it is another
of the countless but to them always interesting songs of this,
that, or the other kind of sport.

But the Andamanese lyric, however confused it may become
in delivery, however abrupt it may be in method, is far from
failing to be an aesthetically adequate expression of human feel-
ing. The songs are natural and realistic in their appeal, smooth
and sure in technique. The selected details are invariably vivid
and significant. The composer's art is equal to his theme, —
powerful to excite emotion and discharge it, and easily capable
of controlling and shaping his subject in a unified but varied
pattern. Repetition is the device that secures unity, but in

96 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

almost every song this repetition is modified by slight omissions
or additions, and accented by syllables like the ballad 0, or by
lyric exclamations, which are musically or emotionally appro-
priate. In these primitive lyrics there is nothing of immaturity
in technique, of crude fumbling, of archaic stiffness. With
their easy expressiveness and stimulating vigor, with their swing
and point, they make us forget that they are the songs of some
of the most primitive of savages. They touch us as human and
modern, and with a certain surprise we put aside the prejudices
of civilization to realize anew the identity of the human spirit.

THE ANDAMANESE LANGUAGE

This is not the place for a detailed account of the language
of the Andamanese, but a brief statement of some of its more
important principles will be of material assistance in studying
the songs given below. Each of the twelve tribes speaks a dialect,
and some of these dialects are more closely related than others.
The South Andaman group of tribes, which is the group with
which we are concerned, is composed of the Aka-£ea-da, the
Akar-5d£e, the Puchikwar, the Aukau-Juwoi, and the Kol. Their
dialects are sufficiently different to make an interchange of ideas
difficult. The vocabulary is comparatively copious; E. H. Man's
dictionary contains over six thousand words and M. V. Port-
man 's comparative vocabulary of the five dialects 2286 words.
Abstract terms are rare, but there is a profusion of names for
objects and for their parts, qualities, and conditions.

The general principle of word composition is agglutination.
To roots, which have more or less definite meanings but are not
inflected, are added prefixes and suffixes. These, with a certain
exception, occur only in combination with the roots, and the
latter are not split for the insertion of infixes. To distinguish
roots from affixes I have followed Portman's device of printing
the former in italics.

Boots may be divided into five groups:

(1) Names of parts of the body, with especial reference to
the human body ; roots referring to the human race generally.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 97

(2) Names of other natural animate or inanimate objects,
incapable of being converted into "adjectives" or "verbs."

(3) Roots which, being substantives, may be used as "adjec-
tives, ' ' or converted into ' ' verbs ' ' by suffixes.

(4) Pronouns.

(5) Postpositions, adverbs, conjunctions, exclamations, proper
names, honorific names, and particles.

In general, the prefixes particularize the meaning of the root
by relating it to some object or quality, and some of them have
a pronominal function. Thus the root ela,8 which appears to
have the sense of "pouring water," may be modified as follows:
ab-ela, to wash another person 's body by pouring water upon it ;
aA-ela, to wash one 's own body by pouring water upon it ; akan-
ela, to fill one 's mouth with water ; 'en-eZa, to tell another person
to fill something with water ; aian-efo, to fill the ears with water ;
ig-ela, to put a fire out by pouring water upon it; ong-ela, to
throw water with the hands, i.e., to splash ; 6t-ela, to throw away
(as to bale water out of a boat). It is difficult to assign a precise
meaning to each prefix, for the Andamanese themselves have very
vague ideas on the subject. But ab- seems to refer to human
bodies and to be used of something done by one person to another ;
ad- refers to that which is done of one 's own accord ; akan- refers
to the mouth, to speech ; 'en- has the force of a pronominal dative ;
aian- refers to the ears or hearing; ong- or on-, to the hand or
foot ; 6t-, to round things, the head, etc.

With reference to roots in group (1) — names of parts' of the
body, etc. — certain prefixes have a special function. The parts
of the human body are divided into several classes. Thus, one
class consists of head, brains, neck, heart, etc. ; another of hand,
wrist, knuckle, nail, foot, ankle, etc. For each of these classes
there is a special prefix : 6t- for the head-heart class, on- for the
hand-ankle class, and so on. But these prefixes do not modify
the meaning of the root; they have a third-person pronominal
force, to signify which Portman prints before them the sign of

8 All examples are in Aka-Bea-da; tense suffixes are omitted in the
examples given above.

98 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

the possessive case: thus, '6t-longotd-da? means "his" or "her"
neck; '6n-kduro-da, "his" or "her" hand. Unlike the ordinary
prefixes, these pronominal prefixes have singular and plural
forms, for they are really possessive pronouns in the third person
joined to the ordinary prefixes, and the pronouns alone of all
the roots have plural suffixes. Thus, "their necks" would be
'6t6t-longotd-da. ; "their hands," 'mot-kduro-da.

Prefixes are not attached directly to the roots of group (2).
The name of a certain tree, for example, is bela-da; the word
for "bow," kdrama-da. But to a succeeding adjective or root
may be attached a prefix that bears upon the quality of the
previous root. Thus the word for "sponge," a root of group
(2), does not itself take a prefix, but an adjective following it,
say "soft," assumes the prefix 6t-, which is used with round
things, hence with "sponge." To roots of group (3) the ordi-
nary prefixes are added, and the original, or general, meanings
of the roofs are modified thereby, as illustrated above. The roots
of group (4), i.e., the pronouns, may be prefixed to the prefixes
of other roots, and when this occurs the pronoun is abbreviated.
Thus, dol-la,10 "I," and eZm-da, "my," become d' before a prefix
(d'6t, d'ong, etc.; d'ot-longotd-da, "my neck"). The pronouns
take special forms for different tenses of the verb (see below,
song VIII, note 5). Roots in group (5) do not carry prefixes.

The primary function of the suffixes is grammatical. All
roots, for example, which carry the English functions of noun
or adjective take the suffix -da, when used alone, or at the end
of a compound word or the close of a sentence. The honorific
suffix is -la; the vocative, -la or -16. Other suffixes, signifying
time, are added to roots of group (3) when the latter are used
as verbs. Thus -re is used for the perfect tense, -ka for the
imperfect, -ke for the present or future, and -nga for the present
participle or verbal substantive.

s The -da is the noun suffix.

10 -la, euphonic change for -da, the noun suffix.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 99

POSTMAN'S ALPHABET

a is short, as u in cut.

a is short, as a in fathom.

a is long, as a in father.

e is a very short e.

e is short, as e in bed.

e is long, as a in lame.

i is short, as i in lid.

i is long, as i in police.

o is short, as o in dog.

6 is a little longer, as o in indolent.

6 is long, as o in pole.

u is of medium length, as u in influence.

u is very long, as oo in pool.

ai is like i in bite.

ao is like ow in row.

au is like aw in awful.

61 is like oi in boil.

n is like gn in gagner.

ng is like ng in ringer.

o is like o in schon.

ch is like ch in child.

g is like g in gain.

Other consonants are sounded as in English.

Every letter is pronounced. Roots are printed in italics. A
line is placed under a syllable to show that the accent falls upon
it. In all words not so marked the stress should be placed upon
the first syllable.

100 University of California, Publications in Modern tPhilology [Vol.11

AJJKAU-JUWOI1 PIG-HUNT SONG, NO. 1
When there is a scarcity of other food the Andamanese collect
cockles (Cyrena). The singer means to say that since there is
nothing else to eat today the villagers must pick up all the cockles
they can find. He also implies that he will go pig-hunting. Or
perhaps he speaks disdainfully: "Oh, go ahead, then, and pick
up your cockles. That fellow is mighty quick about getting them
home! But as for me, I shall go pig-hunting!"

It will be observed that the composer leaves much to the imagi-
nation of his audience and that in the poem no mention is made
of the real subject — the pig-hunt. Such omissions are character-
istic of all these Andamanese songs, as has been explained above.

Solo:

Koi? mdk,3 taule-\& not-6,5

All right, go, cockles pick up,

Mdk, taule-le not-6.

Go, cockles pick up.

not-6,

pick up,

Refrain :
A

e-la6 m 'ra7

took our

karma6 chowe-\e* a.1

e-la

took

m ra

our

quickly

karma

quickly

hut

chowe-le,

hut

he.

Translation :

All right ! Go, cockles pick up, pick up,

Go, cockles pick up.

He took the cockles home quickly, he did.
He took the cockles home quickly, he did.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 101

1. A tribe dwelling in the southern half, mostly in the interior, of
Middle Andaman Island. Of the five related languages studied by Port-
man that of the Aukau-Juwcn stands apart. The meaning of the
name is obscure, but is said to be, "They cut patterns on their bows."
Aukau- is a prefix and may serve to signify that the action named in the
root is performed upon wood (of the bow) ; cf. aukau-cM, in which the
root cliu means to burn and the prefix indicates the sort of article burnt,
viz., wood — hence, ' ' ignite. ' ' Juwm does not at all resemble the words
for "cut," "carve," "make," "bow," etc., and Portman does not give
an equivalent for "pattern" or "design." The Andamanese have a
tradition that the various tribal names were assigned by a great chief,
Mala TomoMa, when a deluge dispersed the ancestral race into the dif-
ferent territories now occupied by the tribes.

2. Koi, P,11 come; more properly, go, go away; come is e4. Koi seems
here to be an imperative used with the force of the exclamatory koi
(="Very well; go! " — spoken with a lift of the chin). I have ventured
to render it by our colloquial ' ' All right ! ' '

3. mak, P, you; but'mdfc does not resemble the forms for pronouns of
the second person as given by P in his grammar and vocabulary. On
the other hand, mak occurs as the root in expressions meaning abandon,
let go, "leave" go, release, unloose. Possibly, therefore, mak may here
be an abbreviated form for "go," or "let him go" (the "him" of the
refrain?), and P, as he has certainly done elsewhere, may have here
preferred not to render an emphatic doubling of an idea ("Go! " in Koi
and male) because he finds the tautology objectionable. Instead, he has
inserted a ' ' you ' ' which does not appear in the original so far as I can see.

4. taule-}e, Cyrena, or cockles. The -le is either a meaningless syllable
added for rhythm's sake, or, more probably, an abbreviation of the noun-
suffix -lekile, which is dropped within the sentence or "clause" except at
the end o?a compound word (P, p. 84). Taule may be a compound (ef. P,
p. 228).

5. -6 is, perhaps, a vocative suffix (cf. P, p. 36) ; but it should be noted
that the -o's at the end of the first and second lines are echoed by the
final d of the third line.

6. e-la, P, by. This, I believe, is a good sample of P's misleading
versions, e means ' ' to take ' ' (see P 's vocabulary) and though P in his
interlinear translation places "by" under e-la, yet in his free translation
he inserts a verb — ' ' He took home the cockles quickly. ' ' The Andamanese
do not express agency by a preposition or an inflected form of the noun
or pronoun; hence P is careful to insert "by," but careless where he
inserts it. The suffix -la I cannot account for. It is not among the
perfect-tense, or imperfect-tense, -suffixes. Is it an addition for the sake
of the rhythm?

P" designates Portman 's translation.

102 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

7. m'ra, P, m'rd, we. Perhaps the better form is the possessive "our,"
composed of m', an abbreviated form of the first person plural pronoun,
and the prefix ra-. The word is probably to be understood as meaning
"our place" or "hut," hence, "home," as P translates.

8. Tcarma, P, quickly, is probably a shortened form. In his vocabulary
P gives ra-jdra for ' ' quickly. ' ' I can find no synonym for ' ' quickly ' '
that resembles Tcarma:

9. chowe-\e, perhaps a shortened or otherwise changed form for chong-
lekile (chong, hut; -lekile, noun suffix).

10. a, he, coming at the end of a sentence, would naturally have the
noun suffix -lekile; the latter has probably been dropped for the sake of
rhythm. The force of the "he" at the end of the sentence reminds us
of our colloquial ' ' He went home, he did. ' '

AUKAU-JC7JF07 PIG-HUNT SONG, NO. 2.
This song explains why a hunter has returned without any
wild pig. The singer, in simple but vivid make-believe, assumes
that he is still out hunting, and he complains, by way of excusing
his failure and exciting the sympathy of his audience, that the
beetles and cicadas are making such a noise in the jungle that his
ears are buzzing and he cannot hear the sound of the pigs.

Solo:

Lelmo-lel t'ebe2-t'r&-t'rdpo,3

Lelmo beetles my -much- rough,

Jirmdu-le4 tf'ebe-t 'ra-£ Vap<5-a,5

Cicadas my -much- rough- O,

T'ebe-t'ra-J'rapo-i,6 U-L7

My -much- -rough- O, buzzing-O.

Refrain :

T'ebe-t'ra-f 'rdpo-i, li-a.

My -much- rough-O, buzzing-O.

Translation :

By beetles my ears are rasped,
By cicadas my ears are rasped 0.
My ears are rasped 0 and buzzing 0.
My ears are rasped 0 and buzzing 0.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs . 103

1. For -le see above, I, note 4. Lelmo (possibly a compound?) is the
name for a kind of beetle.

2. t'ebe, P, me. The form is a combination of the "simple" pronoun
of the first person singular, M-le, with the pr-enx ebe-, t' being the ab-
breviated form of the pronoun used before prefixes. This combination
has the force of the possessive pronoun of the first person, and therefore,
I would suggest, probably has the force of ' ' my ears, " as I have indicated
in the free translation. For the form see P, pp. 35, 37, 60, 61, 66, 389.

3. t 'ebe-t 'ra-t 'rdpo, P, me-deafen. A compound word or phrase: t'ebe-,
as just explained, my (ears); t'ra-, a conjunctional modifying infix (P,
p. 84); t'rapo, probably related to t'rdpe, rough, as of bark (P, p. 135).
I venture to suggest, therefore, that the literal sense of the compound is,
My (ears) rough, i.e., beetles (by) my (ears) rough (are) — whence P's
' ' Me-deafen. ' ' It may be suggested that t 'ra- is a case of emphatic
duplication of the first syllable of t'rapo, but if P had so understood it
he would have printed it in italics, as a root. On the other hand, the
infix t'ra- may give the force of "much," as it does, according to P,
in the form auko-t 'ra-fcer (leer, root, "to glitter"; prefixes with force of
"much"; hence, to blaze; see P, p. 209). The infix consists of the prefix
ra- preceded by a t' that P believes to be euphonic rather than pronominal
(see P, pp. 35, 81, 83, 84).

4. For -le see above, I, note 4.

5. -a, printed by P as a suffix; but of the suffixes listed by P (pp. 35,
36) the form nearest to -a is -nga, a verbal-substantive suffix which does
not appear, except by borrowing (?), in Aukau-Jwwot (cf. below, IV,
note 4). It should be remarked that both here and in the K-a of the next
line a verbal substantive would be appropriate. On the other hand, the
-a may be an addition for rhythm's sake. Certainly the identical sound
at the end of both lines gives a musical effect, a special "lift" to the
lines. I have ventured to copy this vocal effect with a ballad " O. "

6. -i, which is printed as a suffix, I cannot find in P 's list of suffixes. Is
it a meaningless vocable, inserted for some rhythmical purpose?

7. K-a. P says (p. 170) that this U is a poetic abbreviation (license)
of niU, a ringing in the head, or a singing in the ears. The full form
given in the vocabulary, aukau-ntW-lekile (prefix referring to the head +
root + noun suffix), does not resemble the root meaning to sing. Is nili
onomatopoetic? Would "buzzing" be an adequate translation?

104 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

III

AUKAU-JUWOI PIG-HUNT SONG, NO. 3.

Again a hunter explains why he has not brought home any
pigs. As in the second song, the soloist speaks in a sort of make-
believe historical present. He wishes it to be understood that
several people have died in this place where he is hunting and
that therefore there are no pigs. Moreover, his head is aching so
badly that he is unable to go farther.

Andamanese hunters have an engaging joke which they play
over and over again to the ever undiminished joy of their fellows.
Upon returning from an excursion the hunter assumes a mourn-
ful, disappointed air to make the village believe he has had no
success. But after a little while he casually remarks to several
youngsters that in such and such a part of the jungle they may
find something of interest. The boys race to the spot, find the
dead pigs, and bring them home, to the huge delight of the crowd.
It may be that both this and the previous song are intended to
recall this popular play; the next, No. IV, almost certainly is.

Solo:

Lad1 tdu2 1'aukau-pVoA;3 chit* aulo?

Dead-men bones the same as hunting after (?),

Eche-tf 'autau-fam6 I'aukau-'M-eja/ 6,8

My head throbbing, O,

Eche-£'autau-£cm 1 'aukau-Ti^ja,9 d-le,10 '6-1

My head throbbing, he, his-

m'raw-ka.12

poundings-do.

Refrain :

-Nejdls o-le, '6-m'rdu-ka.

Throbbing he, his-poundings-do.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 105

Translation :

Dead-men's bones where I am hunting!
My head is throbbing O,
My head is throbbing, it is, pounding away.
Throbbing it is, pounding away.

1. Lao, properly, means Indian, i.e., Hindu (see P, pp. 286, 369, and
Vocabulary). P notes (pp. 198, 286) that the corresponding Aka-Bea-da
word, Chdoga, signifies a dead person or ghost, and that the Andamanese
long ago applied this term to the Hindus who visited their shores, for they
thought the pale-faced Hindus were the spirits of Andamanese dead
coming back for a visit. Evidently the meanings and beliefs attaching
to Chaoga pertain also to the Aukau-jMWot word, Lad. Hence the trans-
lation ' ' dead-men, ' ' which is P 's. P reports the superstition that ' ' when
a death occurs in a place, and a corpse is given platform burial there,
no pigs will be found in the vicinity for some time afterwards" (p. 171).

2. tail, bone, bones, skull; cf. taule, cockles (above, I, 1. 1), i.e., the
bones (shell) of the cockle. The possessive would be expressed by a
pronominal prefix (= their bones) that the composer has not seen fit to
include. Perhaps the next word, the-same-as, takes the place of a pos-
sessive. At any rate one is reminded that in pidgin English the phrase
would be rendered "Bones alle same dead-men," instead of "dead-men's
bones."

3. Paukau-p 'role, the same as, similar, together; 1' is probably euphonic,
to prevent the au of the previous word from struggling with the au of
this compound. Aukau is a prefix modifying the meaning of the root; it
refers most commonly to the teeth, the mouth, pointed things, trees,
wooden things (cf. above, I, note 1). Here the reference appears to be
to the bones.

4. chit. In his interlinear translation P prints "will" under chit and
"hunt" under dulo. In another place (p. 196) he says that chit means
' ' hunting. ' ' It certainly does not mean ' ' will. ' ' Presumably the word
is a verbal substantive with "I" understood: I hunting. The whole line
seems to be an example of the disjunctive and elliptical method of speech
characteristic of the simpler peoples; "dead men, bones, the same as,
hunting, ' ' for ' ' dead-men 's bones are where I am hunting. ' ' For another
interpretation see below.

5. dulo, cf. above, note 4. The future tense of chit suggested by P's
"will hunt" might be expressed by a root with a future suffix, but dulo
is a root, not a suffix. In his free translation P discards the ' ' will hunt ' '
both as a phrase and an idea. The difficulty is made still greater by the
fact that dulo does not appear in P's vocabulary of the Aukau-JwMJof. It
may possibly be borrowed from the Aka-Bca-da, in which it signifies
"after" (P, p. 193). Might "hunting after" be the meaning? And

106 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

does the singer mean to say that there are dead-men 's bones where he is
hunting after pig, or that hunting here is like hunting after dead-men 's
bones? I have preferred the former interpretation, which is supported,
moreover, by P's free "version" of the line: "Several people have died
in this place and therefore there are no pigs. ' '

6. £che-f 'autau-i au : eche-, possessive prefix singular, my; fautau-,
combined form of the simple pronoun of the first person (tu, I) and the
prefix autau-, giving again the sense of ' ' my, ' ' but also including, in
autau-, a special limitation of the root tau (bone) to the head — hence
"my head-bone," or, simply, "my head."

7. 1 'aukau-W€^d, P, pain. P is probably euphonic; cf. above, note 3,
and observe here the sequence of five au sounds. Throughout the song,
indeed, this expressive au repeats itself like the throb of aching nerves
(the Aka-.Bea-da root for "throb" is auna), or, perhaps, like cries of pain.
Reading the lines aloud almost gives one a headache. What would be the
effect if one were to hear the Andamanese chorus! Aukau- is a prefix,
presumably modifying the root. Nejd may be a poetic license for ngeche,
to throb. P prints this compound and the following 6 as a separate line,
but the division here adopted seems preferable as better suiting the sense
and more clearly following the parallelism.

8. 6 is not translated by P; it may be a meaningless vocable, similar
to the ballad "O."

9. With this second nejd P begins a new line, thereby distorting the
obvious construction of the song.

10. d-16. P's interlinear translation is so arranged that he seems to
translate o-le, "is"; but I am sure that he means only to insert an "is"
after nejd to make the sense clear — "pain is." In the vocabulary P
gives <5-le as "he." "Head palpitating he" is surely a clear and emphatic
way of saying that one's head is throbbing.

11. '6-. Portman does not translate this troublesome monosyllable,
but the fact that he prints a smooth breathing before the vowel indicates
that he regards the form as a prefix with the force of a third-person
possessive pronoun (see P, pp. 42, 43). But as a prefix it should be joined
with some root. I have ventured, therefore, to join it with the following
root, though I think it more likely that it should have been printed 6 —
a duplication, merely, of the 6 in the previous line (cf. note 8). The
syllable seems necessary to the rhythm of the line.

12. m'raw-ka, P, throbs. I have substituted "poundings" because I
have used "throb" for nejd. -Ka is probably a present-tense verbal
suffix, as though we should make a verb out of the noun "throbs," or
' ' poundings, ' ' by adding ' ' do. ' '

13. Observe that the refrain commences at the juncture of a prefix
and a root — an indication of the superiority of rhythm to meaning.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 107

AUKAU-JC7TFO/ PIG-HUNT SONG, NO. 4.

Of this song Portman writes: "I was told that the soloist
intended his audience to infer that he had gone back to the village
and that the people there thought he had not got a pig; in reality
he had shot one, and had left it in the jungle a little distance off"
(cf. introduction to No. Ill, above}. Portman's free translation,
in which he aims to explain the meaning of the song rather than
to present a faithful version, is as follows: "I saw a pig and it
did not see me; so I drew back the lower part of my bow that it
should not see it. I crept close to the pig, silently, on tiptoe."

Solo:

Kok t 'ra1 -chdume2 ra-lot-e,3

Bow its -tying part drew back,

Kok t 'ra,-chdum-a,*

Bow its -tying part,

P6i5 tote6 aW-li-a*

Stooping softly creeping.

Refrain :

Poi tote abe-Zf-a.

Stooping softly creeping.

Translation :

My bow, its lower part, I drew back,
My bow, its lower part ;
Stooping, softly creeping.
Stooping, softly creeping.

1. i'ra-, P, its. Is not *'ra- a printer's mistake for t'ra-f The former
is composed of the prefix ra- and the abbreviated form t' of the pronoun
tu, "I," and has the force of "my." It is difficult to understand how

108 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

the first person possessive pronoun fits the context. But t'ra- is a form
assumed by the prefix ra- within the sentence or in a compound word,
the t' probably being euphonic and not pronominal. In addition to its
root-modifying function this form of the prefix carries a meaning for the
Andamanese mind that may be loosely represented for the English mind
by the impersonal possessive "its." This interpretation, at any rate,
explains P's translation given at the head of this note.

2. chdume, P, lower part. I cannot find this word, but in some of the
Andamanese dialects cMw means ' ' to tie ' ' (cf . chdurog, to tie up ; chaube-
lekile, a netted bag). Chdume, then, may very likely refer to that end
of the bow about which the string is tied; hence P's version, "lower
part." On chdume as a verbal substantive see below, note 4.

3. T&-lot-6, P, pulled back. The prefix ra-, used also with chdume,
modifies the meaning of the root, probably by limiting it to some associ-
ation with a tree (see P, p. 388) ; cf. the wooden bow. Lot is the root,
meaning to extract, recover, uproot, etc., and so modified by the prefix, I
presume, as to mean, to pull back. Of the equivalent root in Aka-Bea-da
P notes that "pulling" and "recovering" are associated in the Andama-
nese mind because the first idea of recovering a thing that has been taken
away by force is to pull it back again. The suffix -e is perhaps a poetic
abbreviation of the imperfect-tense suffix -chike, but I am not at all sure
of this.

4. -a. Is this suffix the equivalent of the Aka-Bea-da verbal -substantive
suffix -nga? It seems to be, if we may judge from the fact that P gives
the Aukau-Jwwot aun-a as the equivalent of the Aka-J?ea-da myo-nga,, to
be able (p. 372). The verbal substantive "tying part" is appropriate
to the context. May not chdume in the previous line be a mistake for
chdum-af P notes that in Aukaii-J««;<n e and a appear to be interchange-
able (p. 30). If, on the other hand, -a were a meaningless vocable I
should not expect it to be printed as a suffix.

5. Pot, P, on tiptoe. In the vocabulary pm is rendered, to drink.
Perhaps the same word conveys the meaning of stooping (as to drink) ?
P's "tiptoe" is ram-ZdcTiofc in the vocabulary.

6. tote, quietly, slowly, softly, gently.

7. abe- is strange. Should the reading be ebe-, or ab-, both of which
are common prefixes, the second relating to the human body (cf. creeping) ?
Or is abe- a case of poetic license?

8. Zi-A, P, I crept. In the vocabulary K is given as, to descend. Pre-
sumably the prefix abe- modifies the root so that it means, to creep. For
-a as a verbal-substantive suffix (hence, "creeping"), see above, note 4.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 109

AKAR-BALE1 TURTLE-HUNT SONG, NO. 1.
As in the pig-hunt songs the pig was not mentioned, so in
this song about spearing turtles the word turtle does not occur.
According to Portman, the soloist means to say that he took his
canoe to a reef where the turtles come to feed and that the man
who poled the canoe for him pushed it along very slowly and
gently.

Solo:

Log,2 l'&r-chodrya,s dlnye* d'idi-dut,6

Right place, his-breakers, therefore I-stop,

Log, l'ar-chodry6;Q

Right place, his-breakers;

6ng7 d'ens aut-bodng-dooato-re.0

He for me hole-pushed.

Refrain :

6ng d'eu &u.t-bodng-d6oato-Ye.

He for me hole-pushed.

Translation :

This is the right place, these are his breakers ; therefore I

stop.

This is the right place, these are his breakers.
He poled for me slowly.
He poled for me slowly.

1. A tribe inhabiting the coasts of the Archipelago Islands, northeast
of South Andaman Island. The Akar-Bdle were subdivided into the
Northern and Southern Archipelago tribes, who spoke different dialects,
the division being between Havelock and Lawrence islands. But the
Southern sept is extinct. The dialect of the Northern sept is closely
allied to the Aka-.Bea-da language. The meaning of the tribal name is

110 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

said to be, "On the opposite side of the sea." The root Bale or Bdla
means "the land on that side," or "the land over there"; in other
words, from the point of view of the mainland of the Great Andaman,
on the other side of the sea (P, p. 205). Cf. the conjectural derivation of
Hebrew.

2. Log, P, the way. Ar-Jd</-da (prefix modifying the root + root +
noun-suffix) means, the proper place for anything. The reef, evidently,
is the proper place for finding turtles. The composer has omitted the
prefix.

3. I'ar-chodrya, P, his-the sea. The prefix is composed of I', a reg-
ular pronominal abbreviation, and the modifying prefix ar-, and in
English has the force of "his" or "its," i.e., "his (the turtle's) chodrya."
Choar (char in Aka-Bea-da) is a root signifying "running water," and
its meaning is modified by prefixes. Thus, in Aka-Beo-da, ar-cTwzr-da means
the head of a salt-water creek; aka-cMr-da, a waterfall or rapid (see P,
p. 378). Our form, ar-choar, is used for a waterfall and here probably
refers to the water falling over the reef (breakers?) where the turtle
feeds. The ya is perhaps an extra syllable (like the yo in the next line),
added for rhythm's sake.

4. ainye, P, on this account. I do not find the word in P 's vocabulary.
For "consequently" he gives an Idchune, of which this may be a poetic
contraction. A word of similar sound is the Aakau-Juwm lelcolnye, ' ' also, ' '
which in the Puchikwdr language becomes Imnye. In the disjunctive
tongue of the Andamanese "also" easily carries the force of "therefore":
"his place — also (i.e., therefore) I stop."

5. d'idi-dut, P, I stop. The prefix is composed of d', a usual abbre-
viation of dol, "I," and the modifying prefix idi- (see P, pp. 60, 61, 67).
The root dut I find in P 's vocabulary as the equivalent not of ' ' stop, ' '
but of "to peck," "to pierce (as with an arrow)," "to prick," "to
harpoon." It seems to have a plural connotation, as "to pierce with
many arrows" (P, p. 319). Presumably the meaning here has to do with
the spearing of the turtle, or, possibly, the stopping (cf. P's version) to
spear him. The prefix idi- probably determines the exact meaning.

6. yo, see above, note 3.

7. 6ng, he; the form of the pronoun used with a verb (P, p. 63).

8. d'en: d', the abbreviation for dol, "I," when it occurs before pre-
fixes; en-, prefix. The form has the force of "my," "for me."

9. aut-bodng-ddoato-Te, P, went very slowly. This is a difficult case
of agglutination. The prefix aut- is used of round things, the head, a
hole (?), says P (pp. 35, 388). The first root, bodng, signifies a hole, as
a hole in the ground (cf. 'sika-bodng, mouth; 'ar-bodng, anus). Bodng
means,' also, to make a hole in the earth, to dig up (see P, pp. 6, 38, 40,
42, and 76 of the vocabulary, and 280 of the text). Possibly the literal

1922 J Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 111

sense of the passage is that the helper pushed (dooato) holes in the bottom
of the lagoon, i.e., poled the canoe. P, indeed, uses the word poling in his
free translation. But where does he get his "very slowly"? Are we
to understand some reference to poling as a slow process, or to pushing
deep into the mud and so going slowly? The root dooato appears to be
related to id-uddoto, to push. "This meaning is not affected by the
addition of prefixes, which merely indicate the part of the human body,
or the articles, pushed" (P, p. 325): thus, 'ot-uddoti, to push a person
from the back of his neck; &ka,-uddoti, to push a person backwards by
placing one's hand on his chest (P, p. 345). If dooato is for udaoti, as
seems probable, it must mean either "push" or some way of pushing —
perhaps gently. Or, as suggested above, does the compound as a whole
equal our word poled? or, "he poled for me slowly"? I have adopted
the last suggestion because it combines P 's version and some of the points
raised above. The suffix -re, in Aka-Bea-da at least, is the suffix for the
perfect tense.

AKAR-BALE TURTLE-HUNT SONG, NO. 2.

Beginning at the age of eleven, twelve, or thirteen, Andam-
anese youths abstain from certain kinds of food for periods
varying from one to five years. This fasting seems to be a test
of endurance and self-control, and affords evidence of fitness to
rear a family. One of the forbidden foods is turtle, a great deli-
cacy among the Andamanese. At a special turtle-eating cere-
mony, which seems to correspond to the ceremony of initiation
into manhood among other savage peoples, this fast is broken.
Young men who have lately gone through the ceremo'ny wear
bunches of Baurowa leaves in their belts, and the Andamanese
believe that turtles, ashamed to come near these leaves, hide from
people who are wearing them.

The composer of the following song, says Portman, wishes to
blame his ill luck in hunting for turtle upon two young men, Keti
and Irap, who were with him and who were wearing the leaves
that are peculiarly offensive to turtle modesty. But he concludes
with a promise to fetch a turtle.

112 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Solo:

Keti, I'ar-bdurowa-le,1 d'iji-jodbgo-162 tikB

Keti, his-baurowa leaves-from my - turtle shame

19 ' 'A

omo;*

-brought ;

trap, I'&r-bdurowd-le d'ij'5-6t6-jodbjo-l6

Trap, his-baurowa leaves-from, my -that (?) -turtle

tik-l 'dmo-a,7

shame-brought,

L'omo;8 bdurowd-le d'iji-jodbgo mare,9

Brought; baurowa leaves-from, my - turtle hid,

Bdurowd-le d'ij'-6w-jodbgo;li bade12 6mo-i.13

Baurowa leaves-from my-that(?) -turtle; saw bring.

Refrain :

Jodbgo1* bade 6mo-i.

turtle saw bring.

Translation :

Keti, at his Baurowa leaves my turtle felt shame ;

Irap, at his Baurowa leaves that turtle of mine felt

shame —

Felt it ; from the Baurowa leaves my turtle hid —
From the Baurowa leaves, that turtle of mine ; I saw, I

bring,
A turtle I saw, I bring.

1. I'aT-baurowd-U, P, his-Baurowa leaves-by. For the prefix Tar- see
above, V, note 3. The le at the end of the compound is a postposition
(the Andamanese have no prepositions) meaning, from, after; here it
indicates the source of the shame.

2. d'iji-jodbgo-16. The prefix consists of d', the abbreviated form of
dol, "I," and iji-, a prefix that has possessive force when it is used with
roots in group (1); hence the translation, "my." The suffix -16 is difficult.
There is a vocative suffix of this form. It is used, however, only when
an animate object is called or addressed, and here the singer seems neither
to call nor address his turtle.

3. tile, for 6t-te1ce, shame. The root tele means "shame," and appears
to take only the prefix ot-, which the poet has seen fit to omit. "The

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 113

Andamanese have very decided views on the subject of shame and
modesty, though they differ somewhat from Europeans in their meanings
of these words" (P, p. 342).

4. I 'omo. The 1' is probably euphonic. The root omo, to bring, is
used with inanimate objects. The form tik-l'omo is a poetic license for
some such compound as 6t-tek-l'6mo-nga, the suffix -nga signifying past
time. The Andamanese say that the turtle brought shame from the leaves;
in English we should say that the turtle felt shame in the presence of the
leaves. The former seems more vivid.

5. d'ij'. The final i of the prefix iji- is omitted, for euphony, before
an initial vowel. This is the rule in both speaking and singing (P, pp.
176-177).

6. 6t-, a prefix, possibly with the force of "that" (P, p. 388). Note
the emphatic effect of this variation (see the free translation).

7. a, probably an abbreviation of -nga, perfect-tense suffix. Cf. above,
note 4.

8. L 'omo. ' ' Certain phrases are repeated in the solo, sense being
again sacrificed to sound" (P, p. 176). But that the repetition is not
without force is evident, I think, in the free translation.

9. mare takes the prefix ig- in Aka-Bea-da (Akar-Bdle, id-) ; mdre is
poetic license for some such form as id-mdr«-nga.

10. 6-, probably for the 6t- of the second line; see above, note 6.

11. jodbgo. With this root P begins a new verse, evidently to corre-
spond with the refrain. But this device breaks the sequence.

12. bade, to see. "A euphonic alteration from bqdig" (P, p. 176);
but in his vocabulary P gives bddig as the Aka-.B<?a-da form of the Akar-
Bdle bddi. Bddi takes the prefix id-; "I saw" would be d 'id-bddi-nga,
of which bade may be considered a poetic abbreviation.

13. 6mo-i. Is the suffix a substitute for the future suffix -ke? The
complete form for "I will bring" would be something of this sort:
d' + prefix -I'dmd-ke.

14. Note that, as in III above, the refrain begins in the middle of a
compound, at a junction of a prefix and a root. Thus meaning is sacri-
ficed to rhythm, says P; but some sense does creep into the refrain, for
there seems to be here a promise of a turtle, after all!

114 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

VII

AKAR-BALE TUETLE-HUNT SONG, NO. 3

"This song refers to an occasion when the composer and a
friend of his, named Irap, went out together to catch turtle. In
the solo the composer states that Irap helped to pull his canoe in
order to catch turtle and thus get something to eat; in the refrain
the composer tells the villagers that Irap helped to pull his canoe
in order to catch some turtle and thus give them something, to
eat, the doing so being a meritorious action on trap's part. No
sarcasm is intended. It is understood that the composer stood
in the bow of the canoe in order to spear the turtle, the post of
honour, while Irap was pulling for him. I do not consider this
song to be pure Akar-Bdle, though the Andamanese insist that it
is; it appears to be mixed with Aka-Bea-da" (rearranged from
P, pp. 177-178). That the word turtle does not appear in the
song is, as we have seen, characteristic.

Solo:

Irdp-le1

Irap-master

'ad2 -jodo-leb3

his -stomach-for

eb5-rdukau6-li'!

for me

paddled,

D 'en eb-rdukdu-li gomal-16 ;

For me canoe paddled.

trap ng'ad10-jodc-leb gomal-16.

Irap your -stomachs-for paddled.

Refrain :

trap ng 'ad-jodo-leb gomal-16.

Irap your -stomachs-for paddled.

Translation :

Master Irap for his stomach's sake paddled the canoe for
me 0,

Paddled the canoe for me 0 ;
Irap for your stomachs' sake paddled 0.
Irap for your stomachs' sake paddled 0.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 115

1. -M, honorific suffix, which I have rendered by "master." The
honorific suffix is added only to the proper names of the Andamanese and
is used in all parts of the sentence (P, pp. 36, 84). In the refrain, how-
ever, the composer has omitted it, presumably to suit the rhythm. It is
an interesting, and possibly significant, fact that if the first line is scanned
as iambic the ictus falls on the important syllables, and that in the refrain
as it stands the same is true, but would not be true if the honoric suffix
were added.

2. 'ad-, possessive prefix with jodo, a root of group (1); also spoken
'ab- (P, pp. 39, 43).

3. leb, a postposition (cf. above, VI, note 1).

4. d'en. Cf. above, V, note 8.

5. eb-. The force of this prefix I do not understand. It does not
seem to be required in order to make the following root mean ' ' canoe. ' '
If P had printed it 'eb, according to his system of signs it would mean
"his," and then Irap would be pulling his own canoe instead of the
composer's. But P states clearly that the canoe belonged to the com-
poser. Either P has made a mistake or eb- has some entirely different
force, which P should have explained.

6. raulcau, canoe, for rolcd. In Aka-Bea-da, and, I presume, in the
closely related Akar-Bdle, 5 and au are interchangeable. Edfcd-da (-da is
the noun-suffix in Aka-Beo-da and Akar-Bdle, but it is generally omitted
in the latter) is the generic term for ' ' canoe. ' ' A particular canoe may
be called by the name of the tree from which it is made (P, p. 216).

7. -11. I do not know whether this is a meaningless syllable inserted
to satisfy the rhythm, which is probable, or a poetic license for a noun-
suffix at the end of a compound word. If the latter, the form has been
' ' made up ' ' not from the Akar-J?aZe suffix, -da, but from a form used by
some other tribe.

8. gomal, P, pulled. The form given in the vocabulary is gomalo, to
bend, hence to paddle ; or, perhaps, ' ' paddle ' ' is the primary sense. ' ' The
root gomal in Akar-Bctle also has the meaning of paddling all together,
referring to the action of the people in the canoe" (P, p. 207).

9. -16. This is not a perfect-tense suffix, for in words that, like this,
are common to Akar-Bdle and Aka-Bea-da, the perfect suffix is -nga. It
is possible that -16 is an extra, rhythmical syllable. At any rate, the
vocal effect of every line ending in -16 is so striking that in the free
translation I have copied it by inserting a ballad " O. "

10. ngr'ad-, your: ng', the abbreviated form of ngaulo (second person
plural pronoun, "you") before prefixes; 'ad, see above, note 2. The
plural pronoun makes jod6 plural, ' ' stomachs. ' '

116 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

VIII

Ai SONG, NO. i

The composer refers to an occasion when a dugong,2 which he
had harpooned, towed his canoe out into deep water, or the open
sea, with great violence. With many exclamations he describes
how the fish thrashed back and forth so that its belly could be
seen, and how the harpoon line twanged as the animal dragged
him back with a rush. The adult dugong is about nine feet long
and is very powerful. It can tow a canoe for miles into the open
sea. To catch one is considered a great feat by the Andamanese,
and evidently the manner and excitement of the chase are so
peculiar and striking that there is no need to mention the animal
by name when one tells or sings of such a feat.

Solo:

Kaka!3 Ui-lom* a5 d'ik,6 ng'&d-jodo7

Whew! very deep-in he me took, your-belly

gedli-ka,,8

kept, turning,

filobd!9 ng'ad-jodo gedli-1s.a,.

Wow! your-belly kept" turning.

Bd!w Ran!11 eld12 d'ik gr6m-\6-i.™

Ha! Twang! back me took with great force.

Kefrain :

Bd! Ran! eld d'ik grom-16-i.

Ha! Twang! back me took with great force.

Translation :

Whew! Out to sea he dragged me! Your belly kept
turning!

Wow! Your belly kept turning!
Ha ! Twang ! Back he dragged me with a rush 0 !
Ha! Twang! Back he dragged me with a rush 0!

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 117

1. A tribe, subdivided into seven septs, inhabiting the coast of Rut-
land Island; the coast and part of the interior of the South Andaman,
and certain small adjacent islands; and part of the west coast of the
Middle Andaman. The dialects of the septs vary and the southern septs
know little of the northern. The meaning of the tribal name is obscure,
but it is said to be " fresh water. ' ' The modern word for fresh water,
however, is ana-da. -Da is the noun-suffix. P observes that in composing
songs the Aka-Bea-da seem to alter usual forms more than any of the
other Andamanese tribes.

2. The dugong, sea-cow, or Halicore dugong, is a large, aquatic, her-
bivorous mammal of the order Sirenia. It has a "tapering, fish-like body
ending in flukes like a whale's, with two fore flippers and no hind limbs."
This and the manatee are the best known Sirenians. It has been sug-
gested, because of their shape, that they gave rise to the myth of the
mermaid.

3. Kaka, for kaka-te, an exclamation "expressing surprise at the
occurrence of some unexpected event" (P, p. 94). As an equivalent I
suggest ' ' Whew. ' '

4. ili-lom, P, very deep water-in. The first root I cannot find in P 's
vocabulary, which for "deep," as well as for "very" and "much,"
gives the general root doga, big. Hi may be a poetic license for some
complex form (cf. the Puchikwdr expression, He bei, how much), or it may
involve some metaphor for the open sea ("sea" is juru). The second
root, 16m, is a rare form of the postposition len, in.

5. A, he. The third person singular personal pronoun, masculine and
feminine, is dMa (-la for -da, the 1 being euphonic), but when a pronoun
is used with a verb its form changes with the tenses of the verb. With
present and future tenses da is used for "he," a is the form for the
perfect tense, and oda for the imperfect (P, pp. 62-63).

6. d'ik, me took: d', euphonic abbreviation of da' ("I"; the same
form being used when we should turn to the accusative "me"), the form
the first person singular pronoun takes with a verb in the perfect tense
(the form for the present and future tenses is do, for the imperfect tense,
dona} ; ik, to take away. The suffix for the perfect tense, -re, has been
omitted by poetic license.

7. ng'ad-jodo, your belly. The sudden change to the second person is
vivid, ng' is the abbreviated form that nge, your, takes before a prefix.
The prefix here is 'ad (= 'ab), the correct prefix for jodo as a root of
group (1).

8. gedtt-ka, P, turned; but the suffix -ka signifies an imperfect tense,
and "kept turning" is far more vivid.

9. £16bd. Presumably an explanation parallel to Tcokd, but P inserts
an exclamation point after the latter only. Mobd resembles the Aukau-
Juwol exclamation alo-bai, which is the equivalent, moreover, of kaka.

118 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

P does not translate elobd, but he translates the Bd of the refrain, ' ' Why ! ' '
Is bd a shortened form of elobd? At any rate, I have carried out the
parallelism by inserting a prolific Wow! But I should not neglect to
observe that in his free translation of the second line P stresses a
' ' turning backwards and forwards. ' ' It would be quite in accord with
his usual method if he inserted this phrase for explanatory purposes;
on the other hand, elobd may have suggested it. But if so, why did he
not translate elobd in his interlinear version?

10. Bd, P, Why! See above, note 9.

11. Edn. P says that ran "has no meaning, but refers to the noise
made by the rope (one end of which is fastened to the harpoon stuck in
the dugong, while the other end is fastened to the canoe) by which the
dugong is towing the canoe about." "Twang" would seem to be an
English equivalent.

12. eld, P, back. In the vocabulary eld is given as "to pour," but I
have kept P's interlinear version. I suppose it is beside the point to
suggest that eld, like bd, might be related to elobd.

13. grom-16-i, P, with great force. Grom I do not find, but cf. the root
gdura, strong, strength, muscle (P, p. 312). Grom may be a poetic license
for some such form as ab-gaura-doga-lom (ab, prefix + gdura, force + doga,
big + 16m, in) ! Perhaps one should not attempt to form compounds of
his own, but this little agglutinative adventure is intended only to give
some very general idea of the many jointed wonder of which grom may
be the poetically telescoped result. I believe that the invention of such
a vivid word as grom to take the place of the sesquipedalianism would
justify me in translating the excellent grom by our modern invention,
jazz. "He dragged me back with jazz O! " is intimately faithful to the
original. The -16 and -i are either meaningless vocables inserted to fit the
rhythm, or abbreviations of suffixes. P says that the refrain is almost
unintelligible.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 119

AKA-JS^A-DA SONG, NO. 2

"This song is about Mala Bio-la, a former chief of Rutland
Island, who was greatly respected by the Andamanese and is here
given the two highest honorifics, Mala and Mam. It tells how the
composer had come into the Settlement of Port Blair, leaving his
adze at Tdra-chang, where he was cutting a canoe. It describes
how Mam Bia-la used to work all day long when cutting a canoe
and how his biceps used to stand out till people were afraid of his
strength" (P, pp. 179-180).

Solo:

Dona1 'ar-wol62 'iji-d'akan-j'ro-tegi-nga-lo,3

I my-adze I -Settlement-left-coming-O,

Mala* Mam* Bia-la* 'ar-wol6 'ik*

Honourable Sir Bia-la his-adze wielding

ig-yduro-tdg-re ;8

-strong-mighty- was ;

Mdla Mam Bia-la wol6Q 'ik

Honourable Sir Bia-la adze wielding

ng '-ig-ydiiro-bd;™

you -strong-not;

Bia 'i,k ng'ig-yduro-6™

He Bia wielding you -strong

Ldt13 6m-madab14-<7<:mra15-1616 boi.17

Afraid his -strength rose up.

Kef rain :

Ldt 6m-madab-<7<Mra-16 boi.

Afraid his -strength rose up.

120 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [VoL 11

Translation :

My adze I, coming to the Settlement, left behind 0 !

The Honourable Sir Bia, wielding his adze, was mighty

strong.
You, the Honourable Sir Bia's adze wielding, were strong

— not at all!

He, Bia, wielding it, you were strong — eh ?
Afraid ! When his strength rose up !
Afraid! When his strength rose up!

1. Dona, I: the form of the first person singular pronoun used with a
verb in the imperfect tense (cf. above, VIII, notes 5, 6). The imperfect
tense in this case is lost in the long compound with which the line closes.

2. 'ar-wolo, my-adze; 'ar- is a poetically shortened form for d'ar (d'
for dol, "I," before the prefix ar-).

3. 'iji-d'akan-j'r6-tegi-nga-]6, P, I Settlement left. This agglutination,
long enough in itself, may be regarded as a poetic abbreviation of the
greater part of the following prose sentence as given by P (p. 181):

Dona d'ar-wolo 1 'aka-t egi-re, er I'aka-juru-len on-nga "bedig,
I my-adze left, country sea - in coming also,

i.e., I left my adze behind when I came to the "Country by the Sea"
(the native name for the settlement). If the poetic and prose versions
are carefully compared several interesting questions arise. The prefix
'iji does not appear in the prose sentence; nor does P translate it or
comment upon it. As printed it is a prefix of the first group of roots and
has the force of "his," "her," or "its." But, with the exception of
the native name of the Settlement, there is no root in the prose sentence
that could possibly belong to group (1), and it does not seem applicable
to the Settlement. Either it is a poetic ' ' remnant ' ' of some idea not
understood by P or it has "wandered in" without meaning, by poetic
license. Of these alternatives the former is the preferable. Next, one
will note that the root tegi, to leave, in the poetic version has been re-
moved from its proper position before j'ro to a place directly after j'ro,
so that the meaning might well be that the adze had been left at the
Settlement. That this was not the intended meaning we can only take
P's word. The composer omitted the prefix aka- and its euphonic 1', as
well as the perfect-tense suffix -re, all of which are indicated in the prose
sentence. He also omitted the greater part of the native name for the
Settlement, reducing er 1 'aka-juru-len to akan-j'ro, and adding the abbre-
viated form d' of the first personal pronoun to the prefix akan. The
composer's -nga (present-participle suffix) might well have been taken

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 121

with tegi ("leaving his adze in the Settlement") had we not P's testi-
mony that with the -nga we should supply the root on, to come ("coming
to the Settlement"). The omission of the prose bedig (also) need not
surprise us, but P 's neglect to explain the final -16 of the verse inclines
us to believe that it is a meaningless syllable, as we have surmised in
other songs, and may be represented by an " O. " On the other hand,
it may be a way of bringing the compound to a close. These many
changes, and especially the syntactical dislocation, are good examples of
P 's statement, referred to above, that the Aka-jBeo-da poet is particularly
given to poetic license.

4. Mala, an honorific. "When grown to middle-age, or married, a man
is called mala" (P, p. 85).

5. Mam, an honorific. An elderly and much respected man is called
M dm-61a. The term is used also for ' ' father-in-law. ' '

6. -la, honorific suffix, "used with proper names, titles, and respect-
fully." Cf. Japanese San.

I. 'ilc, to take, here in the sense of "gripping" or "wielding" (his
adze). The form is an abbreviation of 'ifc-nga, taking.

8. ig-ydura-tdg-re, P, worked incessantly. The prefix ig- presumably
modifies the root yaura, or it may have a pronominal force, "he." Ydura,
doubtless, is a euphonic variation of gduro, to be strong; used here in the
sense of working, i.e., Bia showed strength in wielding his adze. I have
preferred to keep the original sense of "strong," as being more vivid
(cf. below, note 15). The root tag P seems to translate "incessantly."
Tag, then, must be a euphonic variation of tdm (complete form, on-torn). It
seems to me that ' ' incessantly strong ' ' may well be changed to * ' mighty
strong. ' '

8. -re, suffix giving the effect of the perfect tense.

9. u-616, adze. The prefix 'ar- of the previous line is omitted. Pre-
sumably the juxtaposition of Ma-la and wdlo, carrying a possessive sense
(Bia's adze), renders the 'ar- unnecessary.

10. ng '-ig-yduro-bd, P, you worked little. Ng ' is the abbreviated form
of the second personal pronoun ngol before a prefix. The ydiira of the
line before becomes yduro, a slight change of no significance. The final
root, bd, translated "little" by P (cf. P, p. 337), resembles, or is identical
with, the negative suffix -ba (probably from ydba, not) which is affixed
directly to those roots of group (3) the meanings of which permit its use.
Ydilro is such a root, and therefore the force of bd in this line, so far as
the Andamanese are concerned, is probably a general negative — much
like the slang "nit" ("You, wielding Bia's adze were strong — not!").
The perfect-tense suffix, -re, is omitted.

II. ~L'6da, he. L' is euphonic; oda is the form of the third person
singular pronoun that is used with verbs in the imperfect tense (cf. above,
VIII, note 5). The meaning of the line is obscure. Is it, "He, Bia,

122 University of California Publications in 'Modern Philology [Vol. 11

wielding (his adze), you were afraid," or, "His, Bia's (adze) wielding,
you were strong"? If the former, what is the function of the final
compound, "You were strong"? If the latter, with Ldt, "afraid," in
the next line, must be supplied, "He, Bia, wielding his adze." Or may
not the line be ironical, thus: "He, Bia, wielding (his adze) you were
strong!" (sarcasm, followed by the abrupt, "You were afraid when you
saw his biceps rise up"). I have adopted the last interpretation.

12. The final -6 is probably a meaningless vocable, though if the interpre-
tation of the line as ironic is correct the -6 may well be a sarcastic excla-
mation. In the free translation I have ventured to introduce an ironic

13. Ldt, afraid; a prefix and the tense suffix are omitted.

14. 6m-madab, P, his. ' ' A mixture of prefixes and pronouns concocted
for the sake of euphony, and has the meaning only of 'his' " (P, p. 181).

15. gdura, "which may mean 'strong,' 'strength,' or, in this case,
'biceps' " (P, p. 181). P's note is a justification of the version "strong"
in the previous lines, especially in view of the fact that we are thus
enabled to follow the Andamanese in using one root (strong, strength)
throughout.

16. -16, either a meaningless syllable to suit the rhythm or a way of
ending the compound.

17. ~boi, to rise up; a perfect-tense suffix (-re) is omitted.

AKA-BEA-VA SONG, NO. 3

This is a song about a man named Ira Cha, who was a seer, or
Auko-pdlat-da (lit., a sleeper, i.e., one who is subject to trances}.
He used to say, and the Andamanese believed him, that in his
trances he went under the sea and mixed with the Jiiruwin, the
Spirits of the Sea. These did not know who he was, and they
searched for him everywhere. According to the composer, they
tried to find out his name from each of the tribes of the Andam-
anese, but at last they identified him in the country of the Aka-
Bea-da. They alivays remembered him, and his name, says the
refrain, is mighty in the land.

This composition "has often been sung at the dances, for the
taking off of mourning, and was originally composed for one of
those ceremonies. On these occasions, though actually referring
to Ira Cha, it is also inferentially applied to the deceased for
whom the people have been in mourning" (P, p. 183}.

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 123

Solo:

J^1 1'aka-Bdld,2 Juruwin-laga3 'id'-6t-ting*

Country Akur-Bdle, Sea-in-Spirits his- name

dtd,5 1 'dtd-i,&

looked for, looked for-O,

fi I'aka-Bojig-ydb-nga,7 Juruwin-laga 'id'-6t-ting

Country A.ka-B6jig-ydb-ngsi, Sea-in-Spirits his- name

dtd, l'dtd-i,

looked for, looked for-O,

£ I'aka-Yeri,8 Juruwin-laga 'id'-6t-ting

Country Aka-F^ri, Sea-in-Spirits his- name

dtd, .1 'dtd-i,

looked for, looked for-O,

fi 1'aka-Bea,* Juruwin-laga 'id'-6t-ting l'ik,w

Country Aka-Beo, Sea-in-Spirits his- name took,

ng'ig-lomya,11 1'aka-MZea/2

you -knowing, for themselves,

'fd'-6t-£m<7 jdrengo-a?s log-61* 'id'-6t-ting ba15

His- name repeated- O; place-O his- name

ydura.™

strong.

Eef rain :•

L6g-6 "id'-ot-ting ba ydura.

Place-O his- name strong.

Translation :

In the land of the Akar-Bdle, the Spirits of the Sea his

name sought and sought 0 !
In the land of the Aka-B6jig-ydb-nga, the Spirits of the

Sea his name sought and sought 0 !
In the land of the Yerewos, the Spirits of the Sea his name

sought and sought 0!

. In the land of the Aka-Bea, the Spirits of the Sea his name
• learned (you knew it) for themselves;
His name they repeated 0! In this place 0 his name is

mighty.
In this place 0 his name is mighty.

124 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

1. £ = er (cf. above, IX, note 3) =erema-da, country, place.

2. 1'aka-Bdld, supply "of the" (country of the Akar-Bale). On this
tribe see above, V, note 1. The 1' is euphonic.

3. Juruwin-laga, P, Spirits of the Sea. J-uru is ' ' sea. ' ' Is win an
adaptation of the postposition len " in " ? Compare wan, a rare Puchikwdr
postposition, meaning "in." Juruwin looks like a compound. For laga
I find a meaning ' ' height, ' ' which apparently is a metaphoric extension
of laga, the name of a certain species of very tall tree (P, p. 278).
"Height" by a common association means "depth," and "sea-in-deep"
might refer to the spirits who live deep in the sea. Again, laga might
be from lad, spirits (see above, III, note 1), or it may be related to
ig-lagada-da, a newly risen or uneasy sleeper, hence, possibly, spirits (cf. P,
p. 278).

4. 'id' -6t-ting , his name: 'id-= 'ig-, a prefix with ting, "name," which
is a root of group (1), since the simpler peoples regard one's name as a
part of his very body; 'id-, therefore, has the force of "his" (P, p. 64).
The second prefix, 6t-, is also used with roots of the first class. Its office
here I do not understand, unless in some way it modifies the meaning of
the root.

5. did, P, sought; literally, to see; hence my translation, "looked for,"
which keeps the meaning a little better than "sought." The perfect-
tense suffix, -re, has been omitted.

6. l'dtd-i. The 1' is euphonic; on dtd see the previous note; the i is,
probably, a meaningless vocable.

7. 1 'aka-B6jig-yab-nga, P, the Puchikwdr. This is the Aka-Bea-da name
for the Puchikwdr, signifying, "they speak Andamanese" (P, p. 27). On
this tribe see below, XI, note 1. The 1' is euphonic.

8. 1 'aka-Yeri, P, the Terewas. ' ' The country of the Teri here mentioned
may mean that of the people of the North Andaman group of tribes, who
were formerly called Yeri-da; or may possibly be intended for the Kol
and Aukaii-Jmvm tribes, who were also called by this name by the southern
septs of the Aka-Bea-da tribe" (P, p. 183).

9. l'aka-.Bea, the Aka-.Bea-da (see above, VIII, note 1), the noun suffix,
-da, being omitted because the word occurs within a sentence.

10. 1'ik, P, took. The 1' is euphonic; the root ilc means "to take,"
"to find," "to learn" (cf. above, IX, note 7); the perfect suffix, -re, is
omitted.

11. ng 'ig-lomya, P, you knew. Ng ' is the usual abbreviation of the
second person singular or plural pronoun before a prefix. Lomya is re-
lated to the Akar-jBdZe id (— ig) -loman g, to know. Perhaps lomya is a
poetic contraction of lomang-nga, knowing. Either the phrase is paren-
thetical ("you knew it" — the name) or it gives the source of information.

12. I'aka-kdled, P, of themselves. L', euphonic; aka-, prefix; Tcdled I
do not find in the vocabulary.

1922]

Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs

125

13. jdrengo-d, P, remembered that. The root is probably a poetic form
from some compound of yob (ydr, in Aukau-J-www) , to say. We remember
by "saying over to ourselves," and therefore I have substituted "repeated."
If -a is for led, "that," as suggested by P's translation, it should have
been printed in italics, as a root. It may be a meaningless vocable.

14. log-6, P, place in. Ar-Zo#-da is "place." The prefix has been
omitted by the composer. -6 is probably a vocable; it does not mean
"in," as suggested by P's version. With log-6 P begins a new line, quite
unnecessarily.

15. ba, I do not find. P has not printed it as a root and he does not
give it as an affix. Presumably, therefore, it is a meaningless syllable to
eke out the rhythm.

16. ydura = gdura, strong, strength; P, always. The meaning of the
passage seems to be "His name is strong (mighty, always remembered)
in the land," though keeping "his name in place" may have some other
meaning for the Andamanese. P's free translation of the refrain is:
' ' They always kept his name in honoured remembrance, and frequently spoke
about him."

PUCHIKWARi SONG, NO. 1

It is to be inferred that the composer has been chipping a
canoe all day. In the solo he means to say that before going to
bed he cut a number of incisions to outline the work for the next
day. In the refrain he says that the chips (from the work he had
already done) lay in a heap around the canoe.

Solo:

T'6m-ema-'t2 poche3 td* tdur,5 h'tngi,*

My- bed- ? poche chips chipped-in-line, indeed,

T'6m-ema-'t poche td tdur.

My- bed- ? pdche chips chipped-in-line.

Pech-chdl7 tdule* berdto-li.0

Scattered-middle chips in a heap-O.

Eef rain :

Pech-chdl tdule berdto-li.

Scattered-middle

chips

in a heap-O.

126 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Translation :

My bed ! My poche chips are chipped in line, indeed !
My bed ! My poche chips are chipped in line.
Scattered in the middle, chips 0 in a heap 0 !
Scattered in the middle, chips 0 in a heap 01

1. A tribe inhabiting Baratan Island, certain smaller adjacent islands,
a part of the south coast of the Middle Andaman, and the northeast coast
of the South Andaman. The Puchikwdr and Kol languages resemble each
other rather closely; they differ very considerably from the Aka-Bea-da
and Akar-BdZe. The Aukau-Jwwen is nearer the first than the second pair.
"There is some reason for supposing that Puchikwdr was the original
language from which these other languages are derived. At any rate,
the roots, and the construction of the compound words, are very clearly
shown in Puchikwdr" (P, p. 27). The meaning of the tribal name is
given as ' ' They speak Andamanese. ' '

2. T'om-ema-'t, P, I before sleeping, literally, my bed. T', first per-
sonal pronoun singular (iw-le) abbreviated before the prefix om-; ema =
emi, "bed," "house"; -'t, perhaps a present-participle suffix from the
Akar-Bale (note the participial form of P's first translation), the meaning
being, ' ' I bedding, ' ' i.e., ' ' I going to bed, " "I preparing for bed. ' '
Or the 't, perhaps, should go with the following poche, -t 'poche, my canoe
(a prefix omitted?). Most likely, however, the worker exclaims "My
bed!" by way of anticipation: "My bed! My poche chips are cut,
indeed. ' '

3. poche, P, canoe. But rd-da is the generic term for canoe, and more
specific terms, as explained above (VII, note 6), are drawn from the name
of the tree from which the canoe is made. Thus, poche is the name for
a species of Sterculia (P, p. 46). It seems better to speak of the com-
poser 's canoe as his poche. A pronominal prefix is missing.

4. ta, chips. The more usual form is tau, and the primary meaning is
"bone." The "bones" of a log would be the chips cut from it (cf.
above, III, note 2). Tail means also: shin-bone, nut, claw, to cut with
an adze. The plural number is obvious from the context.

5. tdur, P, in line. Probably for the complete form 6m-tdur, beside,
i.e., in line; the root means also, to spread out, to set in line (P, p. 353),
and echoes the previous ta (tdu) : "chips chipped in line," or "cuts cut
in line," would give the effect in English. Tdur is an abbreviated form,
a suffix, and perhaps a prefix, having been omitted by the composer.

6. lungi, indeed. Presumably an exclamation or intensive. It is fre-
quently found in combination with other forms to signify, that much,
then, really, at the same time, — also superlative degrees, etc.

7. Pech-chdl, P, in that place. The first root, which appears to be
related to pe and pete, has as its basic meaning, to be scattered or dotted

1922] Kurtz: Twelve Andamanese Songs 127

about irregularly; hence, to scatter, separate, halve, splash, twinkle, etc.
(P, p. 353; Vocab., pp. 71, 139, 141, etc.). Perhaps we should see a ref-
erence to the chips scattered on the ground. P's "in that place" is
probably a very free rendering of the sense. Pech may be an abbreviated
form, but if the word is participial in force it should be noted that the
Puchikwar generally omit the participial suffix. Chdl seems to mean
"middle" (P, p. 308), referring to the chips scattered in the middle
of the place (hence P 's rendering) where he was cutting the canoe. The
complete form would have, I suppose, a postposition (-an, "in") and a
prefix.

8. taule, P, chips. Why taule instead of tdu, as above? In the vocab-
ulary taule is given as the Cyrena shell (P, p. 228; cf. above, I, note 4),
which was the primitive knife of the Andamanese. But are, or were,
canoes hollowed out with Cyrena shells, the broken and blunted "blades"
being scattered about during the operation? Shells are not strong enough
for such work. Probably taule is a poetic variation of tan, and perhaps in
our free translation we should copy the effect of the extra syllable by a
ballad "O."

9. berdto-li, P, remained in a heap. I do not find the root. The form
lacks prefix and suffix. The -li is probably a meaningless vocable.

XII

PUCHIKWAR SONG, NO. 2

We are to infer that the composer killed a pig by stabbing it
ivith 01 skewer. Wh0n he shouldered the carcass to take it home,
the blood, he says, kept dripping down on his legs.

Solo:

Chdm-I6l t ewe-long2 t'ab-tdu3 1'ar-chdre*

Skewer-O (?) blood- my -shins dripped,

T 'ab-tdu 1 'ar-chdre-ate ;5

My -shins kept dripping;

Re-le6 t'ab-tdii I' ar-chdre-ate;

Pig- my -shins kept dripping;

Re-le t'ab-tdu 1'ar-

Pig- my -shins

-Chare-ate ; re-le t 'ab-tau 1 'ar-7

-Kept dripping: pig- my -shins

Refrain :

-Chare-ate; re-le t'ab-tdu 1'ar-

-Kept dripping; pig- my -shins.

128 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Translation :

From the skewer 0 the blood 0 on my shins dripped down,

On my shins kept dripping down ;

From the pig 0 on my shins kept dripping down ;

From the pig 0 on my shins kept

Dripping down ; from the pig 0 on my shins kept.

Dripping down; from the pig 0 on my shins kept.

1. CMm-16, P, skewer-from. Cham, for chdm-chul, a skewer. So far
as I can see there is no postposition here to correspond to P's "-from."
The -16 is probably an extra syllable to eke out the rhythm.

2. tewe-long, blood. Tewe, or tewa, is "blood"; -long is given else-
where (P, p. 139) as an honorific, but P tells us that honorifics are attached
only to proper names. Possibly one's own blood deserves the title of
respect! I have omitted the honorific, if it be such, from the interlinear
and free translations, but have inserted an "O" in place of it in the
free version.

3. t'ab-tau, P, my legs. T', as above, XI, note 2; ab-cMZMit-da, or
ab-tau, the shin. Ab-taw, literally, is "the bone," but it is used of the
lower part of the leg from the knee to the ankle. Ab- is a prefix with a
root of group (1), referring the generic root tau, bone, to a certain division
of the human frame.

4. 1'ar-c/idre, dripped. The 1' is euphonic; ar-, prefix; chare for char,
"to flow," referring primarily to the flowing of a brook or any stream
of water. The prefix ar- relates this general idea of flowing to certain
parts of the human body, specified in the previous word, shins. The tense
suffix is omitted, unless the form chare is a combination of char and the
Aka-Bea-da perfect-tense suffix, re. The disjunctive character of Andam-
anese syntax is well illustrated in this line.

5. -ate. This suffix is, perhaps, a variant of the imperfect-tense suffix,
-kate, in Akar-BdJe. -Y& or -ye would be the PuchiTcwdr form. P in his
interlinear translation makes no distinction between I'ar-chdre and 1'ar-
chdre-ate. My change in the second line to "kept dripping" will at least
serve to mark the fact that the original does change, but in part only.

6. JBe-le, pig. The -le may be an honorific. Perhaps the succulent
delicacy is an exception to the rule that honorifics are added only to
perfect names. If -le were the Puchikwdr postposition, ' ' from, ' ' P would
have printed it -le. In the free translation I have let an " O " take its
place.

7. ' ' Observe how the Solo ends at the junction of a prefix and a root,
the root being the first word of the refrain, which, also, ends with a
prefix — the whole thus working in a circle" (P, p. 186). I have endeav-
ored to represent this circular, or run-on, refrain in translation by dividing
the lines between ' ' kept ' ' and ' ' dripping. ' '

THE TRANSMISSION OF FOLK TALES

STITH THOMPSON

THE TRANSMISSION OF FOLK TALES

STITH THOMPSON

Four generations of students of popular tales have failed to
solve with complete satisfaction the problem presented by the
migrations and adaptation to new surroundings that these tales
undergo. When we observe striking resemblances between the
stories of two different peoples, often separated by thousands
of miles or by centuries of time, what are we to conclude ? Shall
we suppose a common original? Shall we say that one of these
peoples invented and that the other borrowed? Or shall we
decide that the story grew up independently in response to the
common psychological demands of the same stage of social devel-
opment? In particular cases it is often quite impossible to tell
which of these processes has been at work, and only an exhaustive
study of the peoples in question will ever help toward a solution
of the problem. Even where the similarity between the stories
is so convincing that an independent origin is clearly out of the
question, the method of transmission from one people to another,
and even the direction of the transmission, is often very difficult
to discover. Before a proper solution can be reached in regard
to any one tale, we must follow its history among as many peoples
as happen to have preserved it. No rough and ready method
will serve for arriving at the truth.

In trying to determine the conditions of the borrowing of
tales among the European nations, the investigator is hampered
by the fact that the stories have been told for centuries in the
places where we find them today. First-hand knowledge of just
how a particular story came into a certain community, or even
of the country of its origin, is next to impossible : the elements
that enter into its transmission and preservation have been too

132 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

complicated to permit of accurate historical investigation. Who-
ever tries to explain the borrowings is forced to use internal
evidence, supported by a general consideration of the history
of Europe and by assumptions as to the behavior of tales under
particular conditions.

Such methods naturally lead to the conclusion that the
distribution of many of the popular tales in Europe is due
to several well-defined historical movements, which gave oppor-
tunity for the common people of the several countries to mingle
and to exchange ideas. The Crusades, for instance, bringing
together as they did soldiers from all the countries of Europe,
must have been an important cause of this diffusion. To the
association for years of the men of different nations, add the
immense influence that surely was exerted on their traditions
by their encounter with all the lore and legend of the East, and
we probably have an explanation of the origin, as far as Europe
is concerned, of a number of our popular tales. All the wars
after the Crusades, well down to modern times, have served to
bring men of different race together, and they doubtless never
ceased exchanging stories. Sailors, too, that visited foreign ports
and returned home must have brought in their share of these
stories. And after the tales are once in a country or a neigh-
borhood, their history is easy to imagine. Women in their
hours of housework together, mothers talking to their children,
companies about the fireside — all must have turned to these
old stories for enjoyment and kept them alive for succeeding
generations.

In greater measure than all others, it seems likely that the
period of the great migrations served to disseminate thousands
of tales over a good part of Europe. The advancing races
brought with them their old stories, and these were borrowed
by the peoples whom they conquered or overran. There is little
doubt that Frankish tales were current among the conquered
Celts of Gaul, and Saxon tales among their kinsmen in Britain.
The Norsemen, in their wanderings and settlements, must have
influenced the folk-tradition of Ireland and of Scotland, and

1922] Thompson: The Transmission of Polk Tales 133

the Normans, combining the Norse and French traditions, prob-
ably added their popular tales to those of the Saxons, so that
the English folk tales are as composite as the English language.

Although all these generalizations concerning the dissemina-
tion of stories by conquerors seem most likely, it is hard to find
any actual proof. Similarities in incidents can be noted; little
else. We have no right to say without definite investigation that
a conquered people will borrow the tales of its conquerors; we
can do no more than conjecture. The only sure way to answer
this question is to observe the influence of an actual conquering
people on the tribes it has conquered.

It is largely for the purpose of throwing some light on this
problem by a concrete study that for several years the writer
has been investigating the borrowings of tales made by the
North American Indians from the European settlers.1 By
observing these peoples during the three centuries of their asso-
ciation in the capacity of conquerors and conquered, we can
draw some safe inferences as to happenings in Europe under
the same circumstances.

For purposes of such a comparison, the Indians offer a singu-
larly valuable field of study. Their native folk lore is very rich,
especially that of some of the tribes, and many of their tales
have an intrinsic worth of a high order. Most of the tribes
have an elaborate mythology, with notable cycles of hero tales,
so that intellectually they were well prepared to adopt the tales
of the whites. Their contact with the Europeans has been con-
tinuous for at least a century in all parts of America, and in
some sections it goes back almost three hundred years. They
have come into relations with the French in the North and West,
with the Spanish in the South and Southwest, with the Russians
in Alaska, and with the English in the East. Of late years they

1 Details of the study may be seen in the following papers of the writer :
European Borrowings and Parallels in North American Indian Tales, Ph.D.
dissertation, Harvard University (MS in Harvard Library); "Sunday
School Stories among Savages," The Texas Eeview, January, 1918; "Euro-
pean Tales among the North American Indians: a study in the migration
of folk-tales, ' ' Colorado College Bulletin, Colorado Springs, 1919.

134 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [VoL 11

have met the men of all nations in the newly settled West.
Traces of all these influences, except perhaps the Russian, may
be seen in borrowed tales.

Of all the European races, the Indian has been on closest
terms with the French. For three hundred years these two
peoples have lived together, peaceably for the most part, in
eastern Canada. In the eighteenth century they traded in the
Mississippi Valley, and for a hundred years they have been
together in all the north and west of Canada. The trapper and
the courier du b&is, in order to get on at all, had to make friends
with the Indians. Many of them married Indian squaws. In
the long marches over the lonely mountains or through the
woods, or by the camp fire where they spent the night, the
Frenchman and the Indian brave exchanged stories. And at
his home camp with his squaw and his family of half-breeds
about him, the voyageur exchanged for his wife's native story
one of his own that had come over from France, perhaps a hun-
dred years before.

This picture is not drawn from the imagination. We know
from trustworthy evidence that the tales have been told in this
way in half-breed families, so that the children do not know
which of the tales are native and which are European. This
state of affairs is especially common in eastern Canada, where
the narrator of some of the best of the native tales has a French
great-grandfather, from whom a number of European stories
had been learned. Among the Blackfoot and the Loucheux,
the Indians, when asked, say that certain of the stories have
been told them by the French, although today these same stories
are as popular in their tribes as the native myths.

All the European tales among the Indians have not been
collected ; indeed there is no doubt that many collectors have
entirely disregarded them. Even so, we find among the Micmacs
of Nova Scotia twenty-two well-defined European tales; among
the Maliseets, their neighbors, fourteen; among the Ojibwas of
the Lake Superior region, fourteen ; among the Thompson River

1922] Thompson: The Transmission of Folk Tales 135

tribe of British Columbia, twenty-six ; and among the neighbor-
ing Shuswap, eleven. Besides these, many other tribes show
from one to five European tales in their collections. Indeed
there are few tribes who have come into close contact with the
French without acquiring some of their characteristic folk
traditions.

Hardly less powerful has been the influence of the Spanish
in the South and Southwest. The centuries of contact in this
region have resulted in a notable Spanish element in the tales
of the Zuni of New Mexico and a trace of missionary influence
in the legends of the California Indians. It is especially in
Mexico, however, that the Indians have assimilated the Spanish
legends. The collections of the tales of such tribes as the Tuxte-
pecs, the Tehuanos, and the Tepecanos are almost entirely com-
posed of stories that go back to a Spanish source. Though the
Animal Cycle is particularly well represented among these
Indians, the two latter tribes have also a number of the more
complicated European tales.

The influence of the Spanish versions of the Animal Cycle
(as seen, for example, in New Mexico2) has extended far to the
north, though these tales do not exist anywhere in so rich pro-
fusion as in localities near to New Mexico or Mexico.

In the Southeast, in Alabama and Mississippi, the Indians
have come into close contact with the English and the French
and also with the negroes. From all these peoples they have
taken tales and added them to the collection of native myths.

As to the source of these borrowed tales, the studies which
have been made show that for the usual European fairy-tale,
with its series of complicated incidents related of persons —
such tales as fill the larger part of the volumes of Grimm and
Perrault— the Indians of the United States and Canada have
borrowed from the French, and the Indians of Mexico from the
Spanish. For the Animal Tales, Spain seems to be the source

2 Of . Espinosa, " New -Mexican Spanish Folk-Lore, " Journal of Ameri-
can Folk-Lore, XXIV, 397 ff . ; XXVII, 105 ff. ; and XXIX, 505 ff.

136 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

for the distribution all over America, except perhaps in Canada
and the northeastern part of the United States. Even the
"Uncle Kemus" stories which the Indians have borrowed from
the negroes seem to be ultimately of Spanish origin.

From these two European sources especially, the Indians
during the past three centuries have taken over and naturalized
a considerable body of foreign tales. Some of them have been
thoroughly assimilated; others retain their European atmos-
phere and are felt to be foreign tales. It seems likely that if the
present state of civilization should persist, all the tales would
become thoroughly at home in their new surroundings.

The way in which these folk tales have responded to trans-
mission in America indicates in a very concrete manner the
conditions that probably characterized the body of European
folklore in the days of the great migrations and that finally
resulted in the completely international character of the typical
European folktale.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN APPRECIA-
TION OF RABELAIS

GEORGE RUPERT MAcMINN

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN APPRECIATION
OF RABELAIS

GEOEGE EUPEET MAcMINN

Rabelais has paid among his English readers a heavy penalty
of mixed abhorrence, pity, fear, and reprobation for all the
indecorums of which he was so incomparably guilty. To some
he has been no better than Punch's "dirty old blackguard."
"Good taste" has been unable to stomach the torrential license
of his mirth. Swift's fiercest indecencies have caused less horror ;
Aristophanes and Lucian have been far better understood; the
lubricities of the Italian Renaissance have been far more readily
pardoned. Even late criticism, enlightened by modern scholar-
ship, has felt obliged to add its voice to the prevalent censure.
Sir Walter Besant, attempting, a generation ago, to rescue
Rabelais 's wisdom, story, satire, and fun from deepening
obscurity, still shook a finger of regretful warning: "Alone
among the great writers of the world, Rabelais can be appre-
ciated by students only. To the general reader, to the young,
to women in all ages, he is a closed book. For very shame he

must be hidden away The pity of it!"1 More recently

an English scholar in French literature explains Rabelais 's
misconduct and its consequence thus: "It is against Art that
Rabelais has sinned. Conforming too faithfully to the literary
fashions of his day, courting an immediate popularity by methods
unworthy of his genius, he forgot that Art is eternal. And Art
has avenged herself. No writer of anything like his greatness
is read so little."2 This is the prevailing verdict, whether
pronounced by silence, by passing allusion, or by implications
between the lines of English historians of French literature like
Saintsbury and Dowden.

1 Rabelais, in Foreign Classics for English Readers (1879), pp. 1 and 194.

2 A. Tilley, Francois Rabelais (1907), p. 305.

.140 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

Yet Rabelais has had, of course, his notable imitators,
apologists, advocates, and ' ' Pantagruelist devotees," even his
glorifiers, among English and American literary figures. With
respect to some of these, degrees of indebtedness or of familiaricy
are well known or well enough guessed. Of some it is sufficient
to say broadly that they are "sealed of the tribe" of Urquhart
and Motteux.3 Others have been competent to take their Rabe-
lais in his own tongue. It is not the purpose of the present
review to recall such allusions as those of Bacon, Donne, and
Sir Thomas Browne, or such imitations as those of Nashe, the
authors of Martinus Scriblerus, Southey, and Peacock. "With
regard to Swift and Sterne it is perhaps safe and sufficient to
make no more comment here than that Swift received from his
French master in satire less in method and material than in
general relish and inspiration, and that to Sterne Rabelais was
a provocateur in whom the lesser and temperamentally vastly
different English wit found a victim for petty thefts of whim,
manner, and notion. Coleridge is generally credited with having
been the initiator of reflective and penetrative appreciation of
Rabelais, with having established a precedent of looking most
closely at the philosopher in the great humorist, so that no one
dare longer treat him as a "mere jester and buffoon."4 Coleridge,
however, freshly analytical as his observations are, is not supreme
in the incisiveness of his interpretation. Emerson, for one,
appears to have seen as far into the heart of the enigmatic
philosopher-humorist's meaning, and not a few of the most acute
comments on Rabelais 's power and significance have been made
by such second-rate critics as Watts-Dunton and Leigh Hunt.
The purpose of the present study is to cull some of the most
notable expressions of critical reaction to Rabelais by English
and American writers of distinction, with a view to making
clearer, in the light of modern knowledge of the French master,

s The American Leland, founder of the Rabelais Club in London in 1880,
is perhaps the most striking example. Leland had immense enthusiasm over
Rabelais, but left no critical comment of value.

4 James Thomson (B.V.), "Rabelais," in Biographical and Critical
Studies.

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Edbelais 141

what his English literary readers have missed and what they
have caught.

These literary readers are generous enough in their recogni-
tion of Rabelais 's intellectual profundity, his universality and
permanence, and his unequalled vitality as a humorist, his match-
less and inexhaustible genius in laughter. But their appreciation
is preponderantly general, often abstract, and often undiscern-
ing. Rabelais the reformer, Rabelais of the Renaissance and the
Reformation, the humanist, the humanitarian, the democrat, the
dreamer of a new education, the seeker after a true religion, the
Rabelais of the sixteenth century and of the subsequent social
and intellectual evolution of Europe largely escapes them. See-
ing in him sometimes only that aspect of the Renaissance which
reached its climax in the teeming animal spirits of Elizabethan
England, they forget or are ignorant that he was also the
beneficiary of Sir Thomas More. Henley, for instance, can call
him the delight of the wisest and soundest minds and yet be
so disconcerted by his coarseness as to say : ' ' There are passages
not to be read without a blush, a sensation of sickness : the young
giant which is the Renaissance being filthy and gross as nature
herself at her grossest and her most filthy. ' '5 Charles Kingsley,
though a better student than Henley, comes but little nearer to
the truth when he says of Rabelais that, "born in an evil gene-
ration, which was already, even in 1500, ripening for the revolu-
tion of 1789, he was sensual and, I fear, cowardly enough to
hide his light, not under a bushel, but under a dunghill; till
men took him for a jester of jests; and his great wisdom was
lost to the worse and more foolish generations which followed
him, and thought they understood him."6 Yet Kingsley, who
has studied the Rabelais of Montpellier, the scientific scholar,
recognizes his humanism while he deplores what he conceives
to be its corruption. He finds him standing "alone, like Shake-
speare, in his generation; possessed of colossal learning — of all

Rabelais," in Views and Reviews.
' The Ancien Kegime, ' ' in Historical Lectures and Essays.

142 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

science which could be gathered in his days — of practical and
statesmanlike wisdom — of knowledge of languages, ancient and
modern, beyond all his compeers — of eloquence, which when he
speaks of pure and noble things becomes heroic, and, as it
were, inspired — of scorn for meanness, hypocrisy, ignorance —
of esteem, genuine and earnest, for the Holy Scriptures in
Europe — and all this great light wilfully hidden .... under
a dunghill.''7 Though less informed, the American E. P.
Whipple shows a similar recognition of Rabelais 's relation to
his time and a similar forgetfulness or unawareness of the
specific elements in his social, political, and religious philosophy.
"The period in which he lived .... was one of amazing licen-
tiousness ; and he has portrayed it with a vulgarity as amazing.
The religion of that age seemed to consist in the worship of two
deities from the heathen heaven, Mars and Bacchus, and two
devils from the heathen pandemonium, Moloch and Belial. Its
enormities were calculated to provoke a shudder rather than
a smile. Yet to Rabelais, the dark intrigues of poisoners
and stabbers calling themselves statesmen, and the desolating
wars waged by sceptered highwaymen calling themselves kings,
appeared exquisitely ridiculous. All the actors in that infernal
farce, all who led up the giddy death-dance of the tyrants and
bacchanals, only drew from him roar upon roar of elephantine
laughter. ' '8

No English essayist has taken more delight in Rabelais or
given him more enthusiastic advertisement than has Hazlitt.
But Hazlitt 's comments are generally uncritical bursts of broad
praise, and he specifically recognizes the social or political
reformer only when he remembers, for instance, "How much
Pantagruel behaves like a wise king. ' '9 Leigh Hunt is similarly

7 ' ' Eondelet, the Huguenot Naturalist, ' ' loo. cit.

s ' ' The Ludicrous Side of Life, ' ' in Literature and Life. The most
striking literary statement of Rabelais 's significance in the Renaissance by
a recent writer occurs in P. E. More 's essay on Sterne in Slielburne Essays,
series 3.

9 "On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins, etc.," in Lectures on the English
Poets. Of. allusions in "Speeches of Western and Brougham," and in
"What is the People?" (Political Essays).

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Babelais 143

indefinite. "The work of Rabelais is a wild but profound bur-
lesque of some of the worst abuses in government and religion;
and it has had a corresponding effect on the feelings, or uncon-
scious reasonings, of the world Admirable things have

the wits, and even the gravest reformers . . . ., got out of this
prince of buffoons, whom the older I grow (always excepting the
detestable coarseness taught him by the monks) the more I
admire ; for I now think that his Oracle of the Bottle meant the
sincerity which is to be found in wine, and that his despair of
'extracting water out of pumice-stones,' and of 'washing asses'
heads without losing his soap ' pointed only at things that ought
to be impossible, and not at those hopes for the world which his
own heartiness tended to animate."10

On Rabelais 's religion appreciative and definite comment is
as generally lacking as on his teaching concerning the good
state, the evil of war in an unrighteous cause, and the intrinsic
worth of the individual soul. Carlyle says of Burns 's religion
that it is "at best" "an anxious wish; like that of Rabelais, 'a
great Perhaps. ' ' ' Kingsley sees a little more truly ; but the only
noticeable sign of insight into this profoundly important aspect
of the great laugher's thought is given, again by a generally
negligible critic, the American Whipple. "I can conceive of
Rabelais," he says shrewdly, "as rushing into convulsions of
laughter at the folly of Satan — at the mere idea of imperfect
evil waging its weak war against omnipotent Good!"11 Rabe-
lais's English literary readers pass over in broad phrases his
hatred of ecclesiastieism, asceticism, monasticism, and are appar-
ently blind to the' deep, essentially orthodox character of his
own faith.12

Rabelais 's working philosophy of life for the individual is
better grasped than his particular social doctrine. Hazlitt calls
him the "prince of practical philosophers." Burton will have

. 10 " An Illustrative Essay on Wit and Humor, ' ' in Wit and Humor.
( Section on ' ' Burlesque, or Pure Mockery. ' ' )

11 Loo. oit.

12 Of. B. Cerf, "Babelais: An Appreciation," Bomanio Eev., VI, 2.
(The most comprehensive and most illuminating of recent studies.)

144 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

none of him, or of any other wit such as is "never wanting" to
cause melancholy by "scoffs, calumnies, and bitter jests"; but
most of Rabelais 's readers acclaim his optimism, his joy in living,
and some of them are able to perceive his teaching of self-reliance,
of rational control, and his great zest for the pursuit of truth.
Meredith, who, with a bit of something like whimsical spleen,
turns from Tennyson to Rabelais "with relief,"13 looks to the
French master of the comic as one of those heartening "spirits
that, if you know them well, will come when you do call. You
will find the very invocation of them act on you like a renovating
air — the South-west coming off the sea, or a cry in the Alps."
' ' We have in this world men whom Rabelais would call agelasts ;
that is to say, non-laughers; men who are in that respect as
dead bodies, which if you prick them do not bleed."14

Specifically it is " Pantagruelism "15 that comprehends what
is generally conceived to be the Rabelaisian way of encountering
the world. To Hood, as he expresses himself in the preface to
Hood's Own, this Pantagruelism is a simple thing, the gift
of his "Good Genius" who "charitably conjures up" divers
"Grotesques and Arabesques and droll Picturesques " to divert
him "from more sombre realities." Quite naively he ventures
to call himself "Editor of the Comic — a Professor of the Panta-
gruelian Philosophy. ' ' In Watts-Dunton 's opinion, Hood could
have been "the greatest Rabelaisian since Rabelais" if only his
"gastric fluid had been a thousand times stronger."16 Besides,
Hood had too little of the Pantagruelian wisdom. ' ' Pantagruel-
ism is nothing but that hilarious acceptance by the soul of the
burden of the flesh which Aristophanes sometimes shows, and
would have always shown had there been no cruel gods on
Olympus and no black hand of destiny overshadowing gods and

is In a letter written in 1869.

14 ' ' Essay on Comedy. ' '

is Vid. Tilley, loc. cit., p. 357 ; and Cerf , loc. cit., p. 137, for definition.
Also ef. Sir Sidney Lee's happy description of Rabelais 's philosophy as
"an amalgam of the philosophy of Falstaff and that of Prospero. " (The
French Renaissance in England, p. 161.)

is Quoted in J. Douglas, Theodore Watts-Dunton: Poet, Novelist, Critic.

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Babelais 145

men alike And the soul can never reach the Rabelaisian

beatitude so long as it is vexed .... with thoughts and fears
about its latter end. ' '17

Pantagruelism, or Rabelaisianism, is commonly taken to be
synonymous chiefly with natural high spirits, unlimited mirth,
great in scope and power, free from subtlety of implication.
"The humour of Swift and Rabelais," says Thackeray, ". . . .
poured from them as naturally as song does from a bird; they
lose no manly dignity with it, but laugh their hearty great laugh
out of their broad chests as nature bade them."18 Leigh Hunt,
though he finds superior elements in both Swift and Butler, is
yet regretful that they lack the sheer "animal spirits" that
make incomparable the "liberal-thinking joviality" of Rabelais.
Hazlitt points also to the French master's superiority in good-
humor,19 and in that gusto possessed by only those authors who
have "all the insolence of health, so that their works give a
fillip to the constitution."20 "He is intoxicated with gaiety,
mad with folly."21 And Hazlitt goes on, in this his most voluble
passage of glorification, to recall some of Rabelais 's great
creations of scene and broad character, much as a traveller
might recall some of the best dinners he had ever experienced
in foreign inns.

It is easier to appreciate Rabelais 's fun than to grasp and
measure the quality of his satire. Swift, who of English satirists
relished him most and studied him best, was of so different a
temper that he could catch very little of that spirit in the

17 Quoted from critical article on ' ' Hamlet, " in T. Hake and A. Comp-
ton-Rickett, Life and Letters of Theodore Watts-Dunton. Of. Coleridge's
familiar observation: "Pantagruel is the Reason; Panurge the Understand-
ing— the pollarded man, the man with every faculty except the reason. ' '
(Table Talk, June 15, 1830.)

18 ' ' Sterne, ' ' in English Humourists. Thackeray speaks not so much in
praise of Swift and Rabelais as in disparagement of Sterne, "a great
jester, not a great humourist. ' '

is "On Manner," in The Bound Table.

20 ' ' On John Buncle, ' ' ibid. With regard to the inappositeness of
Hazlitt 's remark of the Rabelaisianism in Amory, see E. Gosse, Gossip in
a Library, p. 225.

21 "On Swift, .... etc.," loc. oit.

146 University of California Publications in Modern PMlology [Vol. 11

Frenchman which was ever dissolving hatred of vice and scorn
of folly in uproarious risibility. As for Sterne, Dr. Ferriar was
probably the first to emphasize his lack of both the vitality and
the insight of his "dear Rabelais" in satire.22 With respect to
the inhibitions and limitations of the French wit himself, the
first notable criticism is that made by Swift's patron. "Rablws
seems to have been Father of the Ridicule, a Man of Excellent
and Universal Learning as well as Wit ; and tho ' he had too much
Game given him for Satyr in that Age, ....... Yet he must be

Confest to have kept up his Vein of Ridicule by saying many
things so Malicious, so Smutty, and so Profane, that either a
Prudent, a Modest, or a Pious Man could not have afforded,
tho' he had never so much of that Coyn about him." What is
more significant, Sir William adds a prophetic criticism of most
of Rabelais 's later English imitators. "And it were to be
wished that the Wits who have followed his Vein had not put
too much Value upon a Dress that better Understandings would
not wear, at least in publick, and upon a compass they gave
themselves which other Men would not take." "The Matchless

Writer of Don Quix-ot is much more to be admired "23

There are two eighteenth century voices which speak out in
significant condemnation of the Rabelaisian satire. Lord Lyt-
telton, in his entertaining and perspicacious dialogue between
Lucian and Rabelais, has Lucian conclude : ' ' Had .... we em-
ployed our ridicule to strip the foolish faces of superstition,
fanaticism, and dogmatical pride, of the serious and solemn
masks with which they are covered; at the same time exerting
all the sharpness of our wit, to combat the flippancy and pert-
ness of those, who argue only by jests against reason and evi-
dence, in points of the highest and most serious concern; we
should have much better merited the esteeem of mankind."

22 Illustrations of Sterne.

2 s Sir William Temple, ' ' Of Poetry. ' ' Note also the comment of
Thomas Rymer, in his "Short View of Tragedy." He quotes from Gar-
gantua XXXIX and adds: "This is address, this is truly Satyr, where the
preparation is such that the thing principally design 'd falls in as it only
were of course."

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Eabelais 147

Lucian is made to credit Rabelais with more "fire" and "a
more comic spirit" than Swift possesses, and with more "fancy
and invention," more "force of wit and keenness of satire"
than are to be found in himself. But Rabelais, he regrets, lacks
correctness and elegance of style, and is too inexcusably given
to indecency and nonsense.24

The other voice is Fielding's. There are, he protests, some
masters of the talents of satire who "have made so wretched
a use of them, that, had the consecration of their labours been
committed to the hands of the hangman, no good man would
have regretted their loss; nor am I afraid to mention Rabelais,
and Aristophanes himself in this number. For, if I may speak
my opinion freely of these two last writers, and of their works,
their design appears to me very plainly to have been to ridicule
all sobriety, modesty, decency, virtue and religion, out of the
world. Now, whoever reads over the five great writers first men-
tioned in this paragraph,25 must either have a very bad head,
or a very bad heart, if he doth not become both a wiser and a
better man."20 And yet Rabelais is included in the invocation
of Genius in Tom Jones.21

Among later critics, Isaac Disraeli is the only one of note
who pronounces the satire of Rabelais a dead letter. ' ' Cervantes
is immortal — Rabelais and Sterne have passed away to the

curious Though the 'Papemanes,' on whom Rabelais has

exhausted his grotesque humour and his caustic satire, have not
yet walked off the stage, we pay a heavy price in the grossness
of his ribaldry and his tiresome balderdash for odd stories and
flashes of witty humour."28 Hartley Coleridge, independently
of his father's appreciation, distinguishes two kinds of satire
which "we may designate the Cervantic and the Rabelaisian —
dramatic satire and burlesque satire," the latter, in its master's

2* Dialogues of the Dead, 1760.

25 Lueian, Cervantes, and Swift, ' ' that great Triumvirate ' ' ; Shake-
speare and Moliere.

26 Covent-Garden Journal, No. 10.

27 Book XIII, ehap. 1.

28 ' < Of Sterne, ' ' in Miscellanies of Literature.

148 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

incomparable hands, having as much of ''richness" as of "out-
rageousness. ' '29 But it is Emerson who pays an eloquent tribute
when he points out how wise men have met the "obstruction"
of evil, of the "beast-force" in mankind, including wise men
"like Rabelais, with his satire rending the nations."30

Rabelais 's profundity finds much general recognition. Mere-
dith withholds from him the title of one whose laughter is "of
the mind,"31 and Pope professes that he "never could read him
over with any patience."32 But the representative opinion is
that of James Thomson, who, with Coleridge,33 admires that pro-
digious knowledge outside of books "in which perhaps only
Shakespeare can parallel him. ' '34 Henley believes that we may
still learn from him, for ' ' generation after generation of mighty
wits have taken counsel with the Master, and his wisdom has
through them been passed out into the practice of life, the evolu-
tion of society, the development of humanity. ' '35 Watts-Dunton
declares him an "absolute humourist," one who "knows that
although at the top of the constellation sits Circumstance, Harle-
quin and King, bowelless and blind, shaking his starry cap and
bells, there sits far above even Harlequin himself another Being
greater than he — a Being who because he has given us the delight
of laughter must be good, and who in the end will somewhere set
all these incongruities right — who will, some day, show us the
meaning of that which now seems so meaningless. ' '36 The praise
of Leigh Hunt is similar, as is that of Kingsley, who finds the
"elder school" of Greek comedy "not only unsurpassed, but

29 Essays and Marginalia, II, 211. Cf. Watts-Dunton 's distinction be-
tween Cervantic and Rabelaisian humor. (J. Douglas, loc. cit., p. 190.)

so ' ' Considerations by the waj , " in The Conduct of Life. Cf . allusion
in "Books," in Society and Solitude.

31 Cf . Henry James on Rabelaisian elements in Gautier and in Balzac.
(French Poets and Novelists.)

32 John Timbs, Anecdote Lives of Wits and Humorists.

33 Note especially the comments in his lecture ' ' On the Distinctions of
the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and the Humourous; the Nature and Consti-
tuents of Humour: — Rabelais — Swift — Sterne."

s* Loc. cit.

35 Loo. oit.

36 As quoted in J. Douglas.

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Babelais 149

unapproachable, save by Rabelais alone, as the ideal cloudland
of masquerading wisdom, in which the whole universe goes mad —
but with a subtle method in its madness. ' '37 Emerson finds him
akin to Burns in his "grand plain sense."38 Holmes says that
"Nature used up all her arrows" for the quivers of Erasmus
and "the audacious creator of Gargantua and Pantagruel. "39
To Hawthorne his mirth is "deep-wrought,"40 and Walt Whit-
man, from the top of his omnibus, has the fancy that Rabelais
is one of those ' ' mighty and primal hands ' ' that will be ' ' needed
to the complete limning" of Lincoln's "future portrait."41

Swinburne, who delights in the ' ' all but incomparable
genius" of Rabelais, "one of the very greatest imaginative
humourists," believes that "no third great Frenchman has ever
found such acceptance and sympathy among Englishmen unim-
bued with the French spirit as Rabelais and Moliere. For them
instinct breaks down the bar of ignorance. ' '42 But Emerson goes
farther in acclaiming the universality of the older Frenchman.
"I told Hawthorne yesterday that I think every young man at
some time inclines to make the experiment of a dare-God and

dare-devil originality like that of Rabelais A jester, but

his is the jest of the world, and not of Touchstone or Clown or
Harlequin. His wit is universal, not accidental, .... as the
wit transcends any particular mark, and pierces to permanent
relations and interests. His joke will fit any town or community
of men." Then, with a sly disclosure of at least one type of
American, he adds, "Panurge was good Wall Street."43

Concerning Rabelais the artist English criticism has much
less to say than concerning the "philosopher." There is but
small attention given, for instance, to his creation of character.
Pope concedes coldly that "Friar John's character is maintained

.3? " The Stage As It Was Onee, " in Lectures Delivered in America.
88 ' ' Robert Burns, ' ' in Miscellanies.

39 Our Hundred Days in Europe.

40 Mosses from an Old Manse.

41 ' ' Death of Abraham Lincoln. ' '

42 < ' Victor Hugo : L 'Homme Qui Rit, ' ' in Essays and Studies.

43 Journals, Oct. 12, 1842.

150 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

throughout with a great deal of spirit." But he complains of
the inconsistency with which the "concealed characters" are
handled.44 Peacock regards Rabelais as belonging to that class
of comic writers, including Aristophanes and Swift, who deliber-
ately make the satire "the main matter of the fiction, while the
characters are kept subordinate."45 Hardly anything better
than such trite comment is to be found. With respect to Rabe-
lais's lack of form, the only notable observation, aside from that
implied in Pope's phrase of Rabelais 's easy-chair, is that of
Lowell when, speaking of Carlyle's tendency to lawlessness, he
is reminded of Goethe's saying that the' Germans think the
essence of true humor to be formlessness. "Goethe might have
gone farther, and affirmed that nothing but the highest artistic
sense can prevent humor from degenerating into the grotesque,
and thence downwards to utter anarchy. Rabelais is a striking
example of it. The moral purpose of his book cannot give it
that unity which the instinct and forethought of art only can
bring forth."46

Rabelais 's style receives hardly less sparse or more critical
comment. "His style," says Thomson, "is as multifarious, or

rather omnifarious, as his knowledge In this enormous

wealth and prodigal volubility of language, he is again to be
compared only to our Shakespeare. " " His words are of marrow,
unctuous, dropping fatness," says Hazlitt. Such is the general
tenor of praise. Emerson, however, is again more eloquent on
the subject. "The style at once decides the high quality of the
man. It flows like the river Amazon, so rich, so plentiful, so
transparent, and with such long reaches, that longanimity or
longsightedness which belongs to the Platos. No sand without
lime, no short, chippy, indigent epigrammatist or proverbialist
with docked sentences, but an exhaustless affluence."47 Perhaps

44 Spence 's Anecdotes.

45 C. Van Doren, Life of Peacock.

46 ' ' Carlyle. ' ' Of. Lowell 's allusion to the ' ' gleams ' ' in Panurge of
that "true sense of humor" which frees a character from "any question
of good or evil" by reason of "its thorough humanity." (Library of Old
Authors.)

47 Journals, Oct. 12, 1842.

1922] MacMinn: English and American Appreciation of Eabelais 151

the better tributes to Rabelais 's uniqueness in style are to be
found, not in such imperfect imitations as those of Peacock and
Hood, but in a whimsical dash or two by Lamb,48 and in such
a delightful piece as Andrew Lang's "Of the Coming of the
Coqcigrues. ' '49

"We pardon Rabelais," says Taine, "when we have entered
into the deep current of manly joy and vigour with which his
feasts abound." But to some of those English men of letters
who have looked into his book "the great jester of France" has
been too baffling, too enigmatical, if not flat and stale at least
too unprofitable. Cervantes has been much more generally
admired, quoted, remembered, and drawn upon. Montaigne has
been much more studied. Despite the popularity of Urquhart
and Motteux, it remained largely for modern scholars to discover
the true Rabelais and to interpret "le rire splendide. "

48 in "New Year's Eve" and "Grace Before Meat."

49" < < To Maitre Frangoys Eabelais, ' ' in Letters to Dead AutJwrs.

COLERIDGE'S ESTIMATE OF FIELDING

FREDERIC T. BLANCHARD

COLERIDGE'S ESTIMATE OF FIELDING

FEEDEEIC T. BLANCHAED

For two generations hardly an essay on Fielding has
appeared which has not mentioned either with approval or dis-
approval Coleridge's famous d/icta regarding the artistic excel-
lence of Tom Jones and the wholesomeness of its author. It is
not so well known, however, that Coleridge was at first a Richard-
sonian, that in his earlier years he considered Richardson more
profound than Fielding, and that not until during the last period
of his life and after considerable study and reflection did his
praise of the latter come to its full flower. His final assessment
of Fielding's genius has thus the value of a deliberate judgment.
Furthermore, when we compare his evaluation with that of
Hazlitt or of Lamb we see that he outstripped both his con-
temporaries in anticipating the decision of posterity upon the
comparative merits as novelists of Fielding, Richardson, and
Smollett. Lover as he was of Fielding, Hazlitt was somewhat
blinded by Lovelace and failed to perceive even at the end of
his career the comparative altitudes of Richardson and Fielding.
Charles Lamb, in spite of the fact that he was ' ' converted ' ' by
Hazlitt and made to confess that Fielding was superior to Smol-
lett, would have been greatly surprised to see how the fame of
Smollett subsided during the Victorian Age. Coleridge, too,
thought highly of Smollett. In his lecture on Humor1 he has a
good deal of praise for both Smollett and Sterne ; and in a letter
to Allsop,2 as will be seen, he sets a high value upon the main
characters in the novels of both. But he never considered either
Smollett or Sterne the equal of Fielding as a novelist; and by
the end of his life his admiration for Richardson had diminished
in proportion as his liking for Fielding had increased.

1 Lecture IX, in On Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne (1818).

2 To Allaop, April 8, 1820, in Letters (New York, 1836).

156 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

The earliest notable reference to Fielding by Coleridge, a
poetical one, written presumably at the age of twenty,3 consists
of some verses entitled With Fielding's "Amelia." After scor-
ing the absurdity of the ordinary "soft tale" that claims "the
useless sigh," the author praises the realism of Amelia:

With other aim has Fielding here display 'd
Each social duty and each social care;
With just yet vivid colouring portray 'd
What every wife should be, what many are.

A mother, in his opinion, might well indulge the. "maternal
hope," that

.... her loved progeny

In all but sorrows shall Amelias be!*

But in spite of this early admiration, expressed in these
juvenile verses, for Amelia, the pattern wife, Coleridge seems to
have been more impressed by the heroines of Fielding's rival.
In 1798, young Hazlitt, who made a special journey on foot
to visit Coleridge, was astonished to find that his idol "liked
Richardson, but not Fielding" and that he would not yield to
argument.5

During the next seven years, however, Coleridge 's admiration
for Richardson was somewhat shaken. In 1805, he wrote in his
notebook :6 " I confess that it has cost, and still costs my philos-
ophy some exertion not to be vexed that I must admire, aye,
greatly admire, Richardson." Richardson's mind, he goes on to
say, was ' ' so very vile a mind, so oozy, hypocritical, praise-mad,
canting, envious, concupiscent!" Why this? The answer is
evident: Coleridge had been reading Richardson's Correspon-
dence, which Mrs. Barbauld had published the previous year
(1804). Disgusted as he was, however, by this eclaircissement

sj. D. Campbell gives the date as "?1792. " Poetical Works, edited
by J. D. Campbell (London, 1907), pp. 20, 565.

* Poetical Worlcs, edited by J. D. Campbell (London, 1907), p. 20.

s Collected Works of William EaSlitt, edited by Waller and Glover
(London, 1904), XII, 274.

e Anima Poetae, London, 1895, pp. 166-167.

1922] Blanchard: Coleridge's Estimate of Fielding 157

of Richardson's character, he was not yet willing to allow that
Fielding was a greater novelist. "Richardson," he continues,
' ' felt truly the defect of Fielding, or what was not his excellence,
and made that his defect — a trick of uncharitableness often
played, though not exclusively, by contemporaries. Fielding 's
talent was observation, not meditation." In other words, Field-
ing is not so profound as Richardson.

Four years later, while pointing a moral in one of the num-
bers of The Friend (1809), Coleridge aptly recalled an incident
from Tom Jones. "Blifil," he wrote, "related accurately Tom
Jones's riotous joy during his benefactor's illness, only omitting
that this joy was occasioned by the physician's having pro-
nounced him out of danger. Blifil was not the less a liar for
being an accurate matter-of-fact liar. Tell-truths in the service
of falsehood we find everywhere."7 Here was a bit of wisdom
which argued that Fielding was more than a mere observer;
in fact, using a similar incident from Blifil 's career as a text,
Coleridge afterwards elaborated the idea that in "no writer"
was the "momentous distinction" between character and con-
duct "so finely brought forward as by Fielding."8 In 1809,
however, Coleridge was not so sure of Fielding's profundity.

A year or two later, in the Lectures on Shakespeare of
1811-12, Coleridge went so far as to say, "I honour, I love, the
works of Fielding as much, or perhaps more, than those of any
other writer of fiction of that kind: take Fielding in his char-
acters of postillions, landlords, and landladies, waiters, or indeed,
of anybody who had come before his eye, and nothing can be
more true, more happy, or more humorous. ' ' But he still regards
the novelist as a mere observer. "In all his chief personages,"
he continues, "Tom Jones for instance, where Fielding was not
directed by observation, where he could not assist himself by
the close copying of what he saw, where it is necessary that
something should take place, some words be spoken, or some

7 Complete Works, edited by Shedd (New York, 1884), II, 54, 55.
s Idem, IV, 379 seq.

158 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

object described, which he could not have witnessed (his solilo-
quies for example, or the interview between the hero and Sophia
Western before the reconciliation) and I will venture to say,
loving and honouring the man and his productions as I do, that
nothing can be more forced and unnatural: the language is
without vivacity or spirit, the whole matter is incongruous, and
totally destitute of psychological truth."9 The opinion that
Fielding's genius was limited to observation is again expressed
in the Lectures on SJiakespeare at Bristol (1813-14). "In
observations of living character, such as of landlords and postil-
ions,"10 he says (according to the report of his discourse),
"Fielding had great excellence, but in drawing from his own
heart, depicting that species of character which no observa-
tion could teach, he failed in comparison with Richardson, who
perpetually placed himself as it were in a day-dream."

When the Biographia Literaria appeared (in 1817), however,
Coleridge had turned far enough away from Richardson to write
that "the loaded sensibility, the minute detail, the morbid con-
sciousness of every thought and feeling in the whole flux and
reflux of the mind; in short, the self -involution and dreamlike
continuity of Richardson"11 were in part responsible for the
"orgasms of a sickly imagination" to be found in the German
dramatists at the time of Schiller's Robbers. Of Fielding, on
the other hand, he seems to have an increasingly better opin-
ion. In his stricture on Wordsworth (chap. XXII) for undue
attention to "biographical" details, Coleridge implies Fielding's
excellence in plot by comparing him with Defoe, whose Moll
Flanders and Colonel Jack were only "meant to pass for his-
tories," not for such artistic novels as "a Tom Jones, or even a
Joseph Andrews."12

9 Lecture VII, in Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare (London, Bohn
Library, 1904), p. 88.

10 Lecture I, in Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare (London, Bohn
Library, 1904), pp. 465, 466.

11 Biographia, Literaria (London, Bohn Library, 1905), chap. XXIII,
p. 276.

^Biographia Literaria (London, Bohn Library, 1905), chap. XXII,
p. 218.

Blanchard: Coleridge's Estimate of Fielding 159

In 1820, during the vogue of Scott, Coleridge looked back
to Parson Adams, and declared, in a letter to Allsop,13 that the
author of Waverley had not produced so great a character.
Moreover he asserted that a ' ' higher degree of intellectual activ-
ity" was necessary for the "admiration of Fielding" than for
an appreciation of Scott. The force of this praise is vitiated,
however, by the fact that in respect to intellectual substance
Coleridge subordinates Scott not only to Fielding but also to
Sterne and even to Richardson. Furthermore, in a list of male
characters which in his opinion are better than Scott's we find
not only Parson Adams but also Lovelace; while his list of female
characters, which includes Richardson's Miss Byron and Clemen-
tina, and even Smollett's Tabitha Bramble, excludes all Field-
ing's women, even the formerly praised Amelia. Obviously
Coleridge did not yet fully perceive the difference in altitude
between Fielding and Fielding's contemporaries.

It was between 1820 and 1834 (the year of his death), while
living at Highgate, that Coleridge's appreciation of Fielding
rose to its culmination in the famous praise which everyone
knows. During these years the vogue of Scott was greater than
that of any other novelist since the days of Richardson. Cole-
ridge read the novels as they appeared and enjoyed them: in
1820 (in the letter to Allsop just quoted) he declared that
the "number of characters so good" produced by "one man"
and "in so rapid succession, must ever remain an illustrious
phenomenon in literature"; in 1822 he thought "Old Mortality
and Guy Mannering the best of the Scotch novels";14 and at
the close of his life, during a painful illness, he said that almost
the only books which he could bear reading at such a time were
the novels of Scott.15 But he never regarded Scott as Fielding's
equal.

is To Allsop, April 8, 1820, in Letters (New York, 1836).

i* Specimens of the Table Talk (new ed., Edinburgh, 1905), p. 2 (Dec.
29, 1822).

is Specimens of the Table Talk (new ed., Edinburgh, 1905), p. 298
(Nov. 1, 1833).

160 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Coleridge's opinion on the matter was similar to that of
Lamb and of Hazlitt; none of the three was swerved from his
regard for Fielding by the vogue of Scott. In fact, during the
earlier years of Scott's popularity, the rating of Fielding among
most competent judges was extremely high. In 1820 Sir Walter
himself, Scot and romancer and admirer of Smollett though he
was (and therefore inclined to credit too much the ill-natured
gossip of Walpole and Lady Mary), defended in his rather
biassed life of Fielding the ethics of Tom Jones, and boldly pro-
claimed its author the real father of the modern English novel.16
During the following year, Byron recorded in his Journal (Jan-
uary 4, 1821) that Fielding was ''the prose Homer of human
nature." In 1822, Charles Lamb (who wrote in 1811 that the
hearty laugh of a Tom Jones "clears the atmosphere," and in
1834 blamed his friend Gary for not loving Parson Adams) grew
eloquent in his Elia about ' ' the thousand thumbs that had turned
over" the pages of "an old 'Circulating Library' Tom Jones
with delight." In 1824, Hazlitt, whose works, early and late,
are sown thick with admiring references to Fielding and who
was the first of the great critics to write of him at length,
declared that he never passed "the late Mr. Justice Fielding,"
son of "the immortal author of Tom Jones," without taking off
his hat ' ' in spirit " to a " name ' ' that had ' ' thrown a light upon
humanity. ' '17

Coleridge, we may believe, noted this enthusiasm with satis-
faction; for, during the latter years at Highgate, his interest
in Fielding steadily increased. His celebrated defense of Tom
Jones, for example, appeared as one of the numerous annota-
tions upon the novelist written in the margins of a set that
belonged to Dr. Gillman.18 The exact date of this defense we
do not know, but it clearly indicates Coleridge's disgust at
that rising spirit of fastidiousness which was to tell heavily
against Fielding during the Victorian Age. Even in 1826, when

IB "Life" of Fielding, 1820.

IT Waller and Glover edition, VII, 84.

isDobson, Fielding (New York, 1894), p. 125 note.

1922] Blanchard: Coleridge's Estimate of Fielding 161

there was so much praise of the novelist, the current of dis-
paragement was making considerable headway among critics of
acknowledged reputation. Lockhart, for example, attacked Field-
ing in the Quarterly.19 As soon as the "youthful admirer" of
Tom Jones, writes Lockhart, becomes aware of the "working"
of the "poison" of that book, he should read as an antidote
Scott's "Life" of its author, wherein he will find glimpses of
the real Fielding as given by Lord Orford and Lady Mary.
How this opposition to Fielding increased in the next genera-
tion need not be recounted here. Suffice it to say that the attitude
of Carlyle and Ruskin (who complained respectively of Field-
ing's "loose morality," "dunghill" taint, etc.20) was very
different from that of Hazlitt and of Lamb — and, it may be
added, of Coleridge.

As the result of further study and reflection, Coleridge, who
had never regarded Fielding as an immoral writer, became more
and more impressed by the novelist's profound ethical insight.
To him it was Fielding, not Richardson, who was the moralist ;
for Fielding, as he saw, threw the accent not upon conduct but
upon character. Citing the instance of Blifil's restoration of
"Sophia's poor captive bird," he declares that Blifil is a villain
in spite of the specific act. " If I want a servant or mechanic, ' '
he continues, "I wish to know what he does: — but of a friend,
I must know what he is. And in no writer is this momentous
distinction so finely brought forward as by Fielding. ' '21

Both Lamb and Hazlitt were sure about the ethics22 of Field-
ing 's works, but they both left Richardson practically undis-
turbed in his traditional character as a moralist. Coleridge, how-
ever, came to the modern conclusion that Richardson was as

19 Review of Scott's Lives of the Novelists, in the Quarterly Review,
September, 1826.

20 Cook and Wedderburn, Euslcin, I, 418; XXVII, 630 seq.; and Early
Letters of Carlyle, edited by Norton, p. 293.

21 Complete Works, edited by Shedd (New York, 1884), IV, 380.

22 ' ' One cordial, honest laugh of a Tom Jones, ' ' wrote Lamb in his
essay on Hogarth (1811) "absolutely clears the atmosphere"; and Hazlitt
said in his review of Mme. D'Arblay's Wanderer (in Edinburgh Review,
February, 1815), that the moral of Tom Jones had been objected to "with-
out much reason.'

162 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

unwholesome as Fielding was wholesome. While Northcote com-
plained of the "immorality" of Fielding's works and absolved
Richardson's from the "least hint" of such a "tendency,"23
Coleridge wrote the following marginel note on Tom Jones. It
was a reply not only to such attacks on Fielding as the one by
Lockhart but also to the traditional assumption that Richardson
was "the most moral" of our novelists, a statement upon which
schoolboys had already been quizzed24 for more than a genera-
tion. " I do loathe the cant, ' ' wrote Coleridge, ' ' which can recom-
mend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, though
they poison the imagination of the young with continued doses
of tinct. lyttae, while Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do
not speak of young women: — but a young man whose heart or
feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited, by aught in
this novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful,
sun-shiny, breezy spirit that prevails everywhere, strongly con-
trasted with the close, hot, day-dreamy continuity of Richardson.
.... In short, let the requisite allowance be made for the in-
creased refinement of our manners, — and then I dare believe that
no young man who consulted his heart and conscience only, with-
out adverting to what the world would say — could rise from the
perusal of Fielding's Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews, or Amelia,
without feeling himself a better man; — at least, without an
intense conviction that he could not be guilty of a base act."25
Coleridge 's numerous marginalia were not confined to Tom
Jones. His notes on Jonathan Wild, dated February 27, 1832,
are additional evidence of his deep interest in Fielding during
the last years of his life. Greatly as he admired Swift, he
declared that the "Chapter on Hats" in Fielding's satire was
better than anything in A Tale of a Tub.

23 Conversations, edited by Hazlitt (1826-27).

24 In Abraham Mill 's school edition of Blair 's Rhetoric the question was
still asked, "Who is the most moral of all our novelists?"

25 Complete Works, edited by Shedd (New York, 1884), IV, 379 seq.

1922] Blanchard: Coleridge's Estimate of Fielding 163

Finally, on July 5, 1834, three weeks before his death, Cole-
ridge exclaimed: "What a master of composition Fielding was!
Upon my word, I think the (Edipus Tyrannus, the Alchemist,26
and Tom Jones, the three most perfect plots ever planned. And
how charming, how wholesome Fielding always is ! To take him
up after Richardson, is like emerging from a sick room heated
by stoves, into an open lawn, on a breezy day in May."27

This celebrated pronouncement upon the art and "morality"
of Fielding's novels was, as has been pointed out, a deliberate
and final judgment upon matters which Coleridge had pondered
for over a generation.

26 On February 17, 1833, he had said of Jonson, "Some of his plots,
that of the Alchemist, for example, are perfect." (Specimens of the Table
Talk, p. 213.)

27 Specimens of the Table Talk, p. 332.

BLAKE, CARLYLE, AND THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION

HAROLD LAWTON BRUCE

BLAKE, CARLYLE, AND THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION

HAEOLD LAWTON BRUCE

In Kipling's Wireless Mr. Shaynor coughed hard and hack-
ingly as he sat behind the red, green, and blue glass jars that
blazed in the plate-glass windows of Cashell's drug store. "Bit-
ter cold, ' ' he thought, as he saw the wind sway the rows of game
and fowl in front of the Italian warehouse next door, saw it
catch the belly fur of a dead hare and blow it apart in ridges
and streaks, showing bluish skin underneath. Into that cold he
went for a walk round by Saint Agnes' with Fanny Brand,
Fanny Brand of the rich voice and significantly cut mouth, and
from that cold he came back with a paroyxsm of coughing that
left two bright red stains on his handkerchief. He mixed a
draught that sent him off into a stupor, and sitting there in
trance, he scratched down words, with hesitation, with gasping,
with agony:

Very cold it was. Very cold.

The hare — the hare — the hare —

The birds

The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.

"There's something coming through from somewhere," cried
the wireless experimenter in the rear room.

And my weak spirit fails

To think how the dead must freeze.

Clearer grew the writing, until there came the passage :

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies smoother than the creamy curd,
And lucent syrups tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon,

" as it is written in the book. ' '

168 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Like causes must produce like effects. The result is logical and inevitable,

as inevitable as induction If he has read Keats, it's the chloric

ether. If he hasn't, it's the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of tubercu-
losis, plus Fanny Brand and the professional status, which, in conjunction
with the main stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind, has
thrown up temporarily an induced Keats.

On William Blake, "born and baptized into the church of
rebels," the first days of the French Revolution fell with the
light of revelation. In bookseller Johnson's shop in St. Paul's
churchyard with Paine and Godwin and Holcroft he watched,
impassioned, the annunciation, the triumphal entry, the Geth-
semane, and the martyrdom of the cause in Paris. In the street,
though those were hanging days, he wore liberty 's red cap ; to
his readers he sang :

The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their
stations.

Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,

Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air.

To Blake the heavens and the bright air were thronged with
spirits more sharply real, more pressingly near, than the men
and women of the streets and fields ; his hope lay not in law and
order and charity and war, but in the tear, the sigh, the mind.

For the tear is an intellectual thing,

And a sigh is the sword of an Angel king.

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

His role was work, unceasing diligence ; with verses and engrav-
ing and verses and engraving again his days were filled; his
tasks were measured not in hours but in ideas ; his rewards, not
in dross, but in beauty.

1922] Bruce: Blake, Carlyle, and the French Revolution 169

Thomas Carlyle, "born in the clouds and struck by light-
ning," "would not have known what to make of this world at
all if it had not been for the French Revolution." Having
forged for himself a philosophy in Swrtor Resartus, he turned
posthaste to an epoch of history wherein his philosophy found
realization, wherein a nation stripped itself of its clothes of sham
and fronted the world with a challenge to old wrongs. The
nation and the world were real to Carlyle only in a spiritual
sense. ' ' Ghosts. There are nigh a thousand million walking the

earth openly at noontide [It] is mysterious, it is awful

to consider that we .... are, in very deed, Ghosts!" These
spirits are not ethereal and free ; he is one of them and he cannot
escape his own shadow ; like Marvell he must say :

At my back I always hear,

Time's winged chariot hurrying near.

Thus pursued, his gospel is ' ' Produce ! Produce ! Were it but
the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in
God 's name ! Up, up ! Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today ; for the
Night cometh, wherein no man can work."

"Like causes must produce like effects. The result is logical
and inevitable, as inevitable as induction." Given these two,
of radical revolutionary sympathies, of mystic temper, of fervent
religious devotion to production, bring them face to face with
the great product, the accomplished fact, of mystic radicalism,
the result was inevitable, as inevitable as induction. Blake in
the nineties of the eighteenth century wrote his French Revo-
lution. Carlyle coming along in the thirties of the nineteenth
century wrote his French Revolution. One was a book of three
hundred lines of verse, the other of a thousand pages of prose,
but what matter? A man's reaction may be revealed in one
word as in a thousand.

If Carlyle had not read Blake, it was the identical bacillus
or Hertzian wave of mysticism, plus the love of the Revolution,
and the professional status of writer, which, in conjunction with

170 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

the main stream of subconscious thought common to all mankind,
had thrown up temporarily an induced Blake.

As a matter of fact, he had not read Blake. No one had.
Of Blake's French Revolution only the first book had been set
up in type and printed in a single proof, seen perhaps by Kos-
setti and Swinburne, since lost sight of for half a century and
first published two generations after Carlyle.1

Thus, in 1913, it could not have been told whether the study
of the Revolution by Thomas Carlyle in the thirties temporarily
induced a William Blake, but since 1914, with the publication
in that year of Blake 's work, it has been possible to see whether
in this actual case, as in Kipling's fictitious one, like causes
produced like effects.

What, in essence, were the spirit and. form, the ghost and
clothes, of Carlyle 's product? Dryasdust facts did not choke

i The bibliographical history of Blake 's French devolution was not clear
until the publication of John Sampson's Oxford Edition of Blake in 1914.
Up to that time it was evident that in 1791 Johnson set up "Book the
First " of " The French Revolution, a Poem in Seven Books, ' ' and that
Blake stated in the advertisement ' ' The remaining Books are finished and
will be published in their Order." The "thin quarto" of Johnson's edition
was evidently seen by Gilchrist (Gilchrist, Alexander, Life of William
Blake [London and Cambridge, 1863. 2 vols.], I, 90), perhaps by Swin-
burne (Swinburne, Algernon, William Blake [London, 1868], p. 15),
and Rossetti (Rossetti, W. M., The Poetical Works of William Blake [Lon-
don, 1875], p. xxvii), but later critics denied any knowledge of its existence
or material. (Symons, Arthur, William Blake [New York, 1907], p. 68.
EJlis, Edwin, The Seal Blake [London, 1907], pp. 104, 155. de Selincourt,
Basil, William Blake [London and New York, 1909], p. 13.) It remained
for John Sampson, who first brought order from the chaos of Blake's
text, to clarify the situation in 1914. Mr. Herbert Linnell discovered a text
of Book I of the French Revolution in the family collection of the late
Mr. John Linnell and placed the copy at Mr. Sampson 's service. Mr. Samp-
son reprinted it in his 1914 edition and gave a thorough bibliographical
study of the text in his Introduction. ' ' There are strong reasons, ' ' he
said, "for concluding that though prepared for the press this book was
never actually printed off or published .... it is demonstrable that this,
the only known copy, was not one of a number issued in any edition, how-
ever small, but was merely a page-proof of a work which never saw the
light of day, preserved perhaps by Blake in lieu of the original ms. ' '
(Sampson, John, Tlie Poetical Works of Wittiam Blake [London, 1914],
Intro., pp. xxxi-xxxiii). Sampson's arguments (ibid., xxxii) that this copy
Avas a page proof are specific and convincing. It had ' ' a defective register,
.... excessive impression, .... grey and uneven coloring and blurriness
at end of lines .... more than one misprint which could hardly have
escaped the eye of the proof-reader .... sheets .... not stitched ....
but fastened to .... the cover in Blake 's usual rude mode of binding by a
fine cord laced through three punctured holes. ' '

1922] Bruce: Blake, Carlyle, and the French Revolution 171

its phrases and snuff its fires ; the eye that could see again Abbot
Samson striding, with his frock skirt looped over his elbow,
along the road to Waltham, saw poor Louis when the pale king-
doms yawned and he must enter, all unkinged ; saw swart, burly-
headed, barrel Mirabeau and Father Gerard, solid in his thick
shoes ; saw sea-green Robespierre ; Marat, croaking Peoples '
Friend ; knew to catch the sharp lines of the actors ' faces ; knew
to make old days bright in the brilliant noon of imagination,
noon not fading into twilight.

The Revolution under the illumination of his mind was
revealed a drama, a drama opening with the Procession of the
Elect, unfolding with the Fall of the Bastille and the Insurrec-
tion of Women, closing with the tumbrils — "Danton — no weak-
ness— and the whiff of grapeshot. And the drama was a poetic
drama. "The only Poetry is History." It was written in the
elegiac mood that comes upon those who know and feel with the
past.

Sovereigns die and Sovereignties The Merovingian kings, slowly

wending on their bullock-carts through the streets of Paris, with their long
hair flowing, have all wended slowly on — into Eternity. Charlemagne sleeps
at Salzburg, with truncheon grounded; only Fable expecting that he will
awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin Bow-legged, where now is their eye
of menace, their voice of command? Eollo and his shaggy Northmen cover
not the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair
of Tow-head now needs no combing; Iron-cutter cannot cut a cobweb;
shrill Fredegonda, shrill Brunhilda have had out their hot life-scold and
lie silent, their hot life-frenzy cooled

This life-like drama which is poetry develops on a stage that
is all France, all Europe. There is a curious extension of vision,
a universalizing of experience, a power (caught later by Dickens
in his Marquis d'Evremonde) of making one nobleman the whole
Estate of Nobility, one peasant the whole throng of dispossessed
and disinherited. "Huge Paris pours itself forth .... from
each Town and Village come subsidiary rills This singu-
lar Riquetti Mirabeau .... In fiery rough figure, with black
Samson-locks under the slouch-hat, he steps along there ....
he will fill all France with Flame — like a burning mountain he
blazes heaven-high."

172 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol.11

The meaning of the play? That in

a world mostly of "Stuffed Clothes-suits," that chatter and grin meaning-
less .... quite ghastly to the earnest soul Old garnitures and

social vestures drop off .... fast .... and are trodden under the

National decree The nation is for the present, figuratively speaking,

naked; it has no rule or vesture; but is naked, — a Sansculottic Nation!
Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of Freedom reach us; when
the long-enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises
.... and swears by Him that made it, that it will be free! Free? Under-
stand that well, it is the deep commandment .... of our whole being.

Carlyle 's French Revolution is a vivid drama, in poetic prose ;
reminding us, that at about this period (the period of the inven-
tion of the top hat, I remember, Chesterton) certain Frenchmen,
no stuffed Clothes-suits, brought, in their own land of France,
reality among phantasm. "Free? — Understand that well."

Blake's French Revolution is a vivid drama, in rhythmic
lines, reminding us, that at about this period (the period of the
wearing of the red cap, I remember, Blake) certain Frenchmen,
gathered in their morning Senate, defied all bearers of the crim-
son robe or the mitre, all phantom principalities and powers.
"Sick the kings of the Nations."

From the sick Prince on his couch, with his strong hand
outstretched, the bone running from his shoulder down, aching
cold, into the sceptre, to Mirabeau rising like a voice from the
dim pillars, crying "Where is the General of the Nation?,"
Blake's verse casts a cloudy-eloquent spell of symbolic reality.
Its scenes, sprung from the mind, are sprung from life, and its
actors — Burgundy, ' ' red as wine from his mountains, ' ' Aumont,
"chaos-born soul .... Eternally wand'ring\^a comet and
swift-falling fire ; ' ' Fayette, Mirabeau, Bailly the strong foot of
France, Clermont the terrible voice — move and have a veritable
and no shadowy being.

They move in a dramatic action, a debate (like that of the
fallen angels) of those about to fall. It is preluded by the
Bastille and its seven towers, imprisoning the enemies of the
Nobility, chaining them hand and foot, pinioning them to the

1922] Bruce: Blalce, Carlyle, and the French Revolution 173

stone floor, binding them down to beds of straw, with a chain
and a band round their middle, or shutting them in dens narrow
and short as the graves of children.2

The debate opens: Burgundy's boasts "fall like purple
autumn on the sheaves," the Archbishop of Paris hisses his
hideous advice: . . . . "let the Bastille devour these rebellious
seditious"; Bourbon joins the counsellors of force, that "our
shoulders may not be plough 'd with the furrows of poverty."
Then Orleans, "generous as mountains," strikes at last the
strain . . . . "all men .... equal .... brethren." Fayette,
as Orleans enjoins, orders the army to retire ten miles from
Paris. The people are left in peace and the Senate sits ' ' beneath
morning's beam."

The coming of brotherhood is debated in lines of lyric beauty
for the ear, of spiritual vigor for the intellect, of rich color for
the eye. If the speech be of the opposition, it does not falter :

Shall this marble-built heaven become a clay cottage, this earth an

oak stool, and these mowers
From the Atlantic mountains mow down all the great starry harvest

of six thousand years?

Till our purple and crimson is faded to russet, and the kingdoms of

earth bound in sheaves,
And the ancient forests of chivalry hewn, and the joys of the combat

burnt for fuel?

If it be of the affirmative, it does not stumble :

Can the fires of Nobility ever be quench 'd, or the stars by a stormy

night?
Is the body diseased when the members are healthful? Can the man

be bound in sorrow
Whose ev'ry function is filled with its fiery desire? Can the soul,

whose brain and heart
Cast their rivers in equal tides thro' the great Paradise, languish

because the feet,

2 "It was the bondage of man that fired Blake." (Richard Roberts,
"Ruskin: A Centenary View \The Nation, CVIII, 564, April 12, 1919].)

174 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Hands, head, bosom, and parts of love follow their high breathing

joy?
And can Nobles be bound when the people are free, or God weep

when his children are happy I

Go, thou cold recluse, into the fires

Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd, and
write laws.

Though the debate is within the walls of the Louvre, the vision
of the speakers leaps those barriers and compasses France. The
king

like the central fire from the window .... sees his vast armies
spread over the hills,

Breathing red fires from man to man, and from horse to horse.

He hears

.... rushing of muskets and bright 'ning of swords ; and visages,

redd'ning with war,
Frowning and looking up from brooding villages and every dark 'ning

city.

Sieves speaks:

Hear, O heavens of France! the voice of the people, arising from

valley and hill,
O'erclouded with power. Hear the voice of valleys, the voice of

meek cities
Mourning oppressed on village and field.

Then the valleys of France shall cry to the soldier: "Throw down

thy sword and musket
And run and embrace the meek peasant. ' '

The issue of the debate has been forecast. Kings are sick
throughout all the earth, and their spirits cry :

Hide from the living. Our bonds and our prisoners shout in the

open field.
Hide in the nether earth! Hide in the bones! Sit obscured in the

hollow scull!
Our flesh is corrupted, and we wear away. We are numbered among

the living. Let us hide

In stones, among roots of trees. The prisoners have burst their dens.
Let us hide! let us hide in the dust! and plague and wrath and

tempest shall cease.

1922] Bruce: Blake, Carlyle, and the French Eevolution 175

When the end conies, phantasm and unreality, priest and ruler,
in these sansculottic times, pass away.

On pestilent vapours .... flow frequent spectres of religious men,

weeping
In winds, driven out of the abbeys, their naked souls shiver in keen

open air;
Driven out by the fiery cloud of Voltaire, and thund'rous rocks of

Rousseau,
They clash like foam against the ridges of the army, uttering a faint

feeble cry.

Pale and cold sat the king in midst of his Peers, and his noble heart

sunk, and his pulses
Suspended their motion:

.... his Peers pale like mountains of the dead,

Cover 'd with dews of night, groaning, shaking forests and floods.

The cold newt
And snake, and damp toad on the kingly foot crawl, or croak on the

awful knee.
Shedding their slime; in folds of the robe the crown 'd adder builds

and hisses
From stony brows; shaken the forests of France, sick the Kings of

the nations.

And the saw, and the hammer, the chisel, the pencil, the pen, and

the instruments
Of heavenly song sound in the wilds once forbidden .... and the

happy earth sings in its course.

Like causes produced like effects. William Blake sat in his
house in Poland Street and saw the Bastille, the Louvre, the
Senate, the mountains and the valleys and the high flaming rich
bosoms of France. Thomas Carlyle sat in his house in Cheyne
Row and marked the children of destiny in the Procession of
the Elect ; swirled about the Bastille in July days and grimaced
at the irony of the Feast of Pikes. Both felt the same fiery
exaltation at the passing of ' ' Stuffed Clothes-Suits ' ' ; either could
have said to the world : ' ' You have not had for a hundred years
any book that comes more direct and flamingly from the heart
of a living man"; both breathed their fervency in phrases of

176 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [VoL 11

sharpest force and fullest color. A hundred concepts of Blake's
are not in Carlyle ; a thousand of Carlyle 's are not in Blake ;
yet they are close together, closer far in these tangible fact poems
of theirs than Mr. Shaynor and John Keats in their vague
unfinished lines in Kipling's fiction. If Swinburne could seri-
ously venture that "The points of contact and sides of likeness
between William Blake and Walt Whitman are so many and
so grave as to afford some ground of reason to those who preach
the transition of souls or transfusion of spirits";3 then I could
venture that the points of contact and sides of likeness between
William Blake 's French Revolution and Thomas Carlyle 's French
Revolution are so many and so grave as to afford some ground
of reason to one who would suggest that Blake sat at the elbow
of Carlyle in Cheyne Row until that damp January evening of
1837 when, just as the light was falling, Carlyle wrote the last
sentence of his book. Speaking more soberly I could venture
that it was the identical bacillus, or Hertzian wave of mysticism,
plus the love of the Revolution, and the professional status of
writer, which, in conjunction with the main stream of sub-
conscious thought common to all mankind, had thrown up
temporarily an induced Blake.

3 Swinburne, Algernon, op. ait., p. 300.

POE'S DOCTRINE OF EFFECT

GEORGE F. RICHARDSON

FOE'S DOCTRINE OF EFFECT1

GEORGE F. RICHARDSON

Professor Sherman in his introduction to A Book of Short
Stories quotes with approval from Poe :

A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not
fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived,
with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out,
he then invents such incidents — he then combines such events as may best
aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence
tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first
step. Keeping originality always in view .... I say to myself, in the
first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart,
the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I,
on the present occasion, select? "2

Professor Sherman thinks "it is clear that Poe's prose tales,
as well as his poems, were written after an exact determination
of the total impression to be produced by them"3 and that

according to Poe's practice and precept, a short story is: A brief, original
narrative, free from excrescence, of events cunningly arranged for the pro-
duction of a single predetermined effect, .... If you will examine the
stories in our collection .... you will be inclined to believe that the
authors have generally acted upon Poe's assurance that the only unity with
which the artist need to concern himself is the unity of effect.4

Yet in the second section of his introduction Professor
Sherman in dealing with Stevenson's dictum that there are
three ways and three ways only, of writing a story — "You may
take a plot and fit characters to it, or you may take a character

1 Citations in this paper are to Sherman, S. P., A Boole of Short Stories
(New York, 1914), and to The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with an intro-
duction and memoir by Eichard Henry Stoddard (New York, latest ed.
1884). 6 vols. References will be made to them respectively as Sherman
and Poe.

2 Sherman, p. ix. Poe, VI, 117; V, 158.
s Sherman, p. ix.

* Sherman, pp. xi and xii.

180 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

and choose incidents and situations to develop it, or lastly ....
you may take a certain atmosphere and get actions and persons
to realize and express it" — admits that it is extremely difficult,
if not impossible, to determine which of the three elements
receives the predominant emphasis — that it is impossible in many
cases to tell what the author set out to express. He says of
Barrie 's "Courting of T'nowhead's Bell" that "one is at a loss
to declare whether the author set out with a desire to 'express'
Thrums, or to illustrate the characters of two Scotch lovers, or
to realize the humorous possibilities of a series of odd situ-
ations."5 Yet it would appear, from what our critic has said
before, that above all Barrie should have set out to produce a
single unified effect upon the heart, the intellect, or (more gen-
erally) the soul of the reader. What effect? The effect that
the life of Thrums produced upon Barrie; the effect that the
quaint personalities produced upon him; or simply the general
humorous effect of a series of odd situations? The fact that
Barrie may have had three purposes in mind and that each of
these purposes may be stated as an effect would make it appear
that he perhaps was striving after no one particular effect, but
that he was endeavoring to give pleasure through the production
of a complex of effects. This pleasure itself is an effect, which is
heightened by being given to us in an organic unity or a close
approach to organic unity — a thing common to all good works
of art of whatever description.

Of many a good story it is practically impossible to affirm
truthfully that, aside from this pleasure that springs from
the harmonius combination of a number of effects within an
organic whole, the story has a single unifying effect. What is
the single unifying effect of "The Lady or the Tiger?" for
instance. We are given first a humorous treatment of character
and situation, so that the effect may be said to be humorous;
then we pass to a situation of tragic possibilities, and to exposi-
tory unfoldment of those tragic possibilities; and at the end we
are suddenly left in a baffling dilemma, which it appears that

s Sherman, p. xiv.

1922] Eichardson: Foe's Doctrine of Effect 181

the writer was carefully steering us into. The effect of bewilder-
ment and exasperation which that dilemma produces is the major
effect of the story, the ultimate effect, the effect that Stockton
set out to produce, but it is not a unifying effect, because it does
not appear until the very end. A unifying effect should not be
led up to; it should, as in "The Fall of the House of Usher,"
everywhere appear. What is the unifying effect of Poe's "The
Gold Bug"? — this story, by the way, appears to me vastly
overrated, because it separates naturally into two very distinct
parts, as a well unified story should not; because the character
drawing and the conversational elements are not particularly
excellent; because the plot is sadly lamed by one or two gross
absurdities and proves in the end to be in the main a sort of
much ado about little in that a deal of the thrillingly myster-
ious performances turn out mere hocus pocus of practical joking ;
and because one effect of the whole is that of anticlimax, since
the narrative disappears into a labored exposition of the involved
cryptogram — what is the unifying effect of "Will o' the Mill"?
Professor Sherman discerns that the effect Stevenson aimed at
' ' is the charm of a tranquilly contemplative and reflective soul. ' '°
But I hesitate to say as much. Personally, I get a variety of
effects from that story, not one of which I should consider the
only chief effect for which the story was written ; and I am not
sure that it was not composed partly for the purpose of censur-
ing the "tranquilly contemplative and reflective soul." To me
the story is as bewildering as life itself, and that bewilderment
constitutes one of its charms. But did Stevenson say to him-
self when he began the story, "Lo, I will produce a tale that
shall bewilder the reader with the bewilderment that comes from
over-contemplation of life?" Rather, I prefer to think, Steven-
son, like many another good workman, builded better than he
knew.

I have grave doubts not only as to whether the only unity
with which the artist need greatly concern himself is the unity
of effect, but as to whether unity of effect is necessary at all.

s Sherman, p. xvi.

182 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

And not only that, but even as to whether Poe himself considered
it essential. What was Poe's notion of effect? We have already
seen that he thought of it at least once as a thing of the heart or
the intellect or (more generally) of the soul. Soul he perhaps
considered a combination of the two. At any rate, it would
appear that "effect" is not a mere emotional matter. Did he
use the term in more than one sense, and as loosely as he used
the term originality? In discussing Nathaniel Hawthorne he
asserts in one and the same essay,

The fact is that, if Mr. Hawthorne were really original, he could not fail
of making himself felt by the public. But the fact is, he is not original
in any sense 7 Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, cre-
ation, imagination, originality — a trait which, in the literature of fiction,
is positively worth all the rest. But the nature of the originality, so far
as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly understood. The
inventive or original mind as frequently displays itself in novelty of tone
as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original in all points.8

But it seems from something that appears between these two
excerpts that Poe may have been using originality in two differ-
ent senses and did not take the trouble to keep from apparently
contradicting himself.

There is a species of writing which, with some difficulty, may be

admitted as a lower degree of what I have called the true original

This kind of composition (which still appertains to a high order) is usually
designated as ' ' the natural. ' ' It has little external resemblance, but
strong internal affinity, to the true original, if, indeed, as I have suggested,
it is not of this latter an inferior degree. It is best exemplified among
English writers in Addison, Irving, and Hawthorne.^

A good deal of the critical work of Poe is probably hasty
journalism. This is true, at least, of the two critiques in
which his doctrine of effect is set forth — "The Philosophy of
Composition, ' '10 and ' ' Nathaniel Hawthorne. ' '" In spite of the
great parade of logic and philosophical discrimination in those

7 Poe, VI, 105.

8 Poe, VI, 119 and 120.

9 Poe, VI, 108.

10 Poe, V.

11 Poe, VI.

1922] Richardson: Foe's Doctrine of Effect 183

• two articles, there is considerable unsatisfying vagueness in the
use of terms. He says, for instance, that the skilful literary
artist, if wise, "has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate
his incidents, ' ' but he has chosen an effect that is to be wrought
out by incident or tone, or both. If the effect is chosen before
the incidents and tone, "the idea of the tale has been presented
unblemished, because undisturbed."12 What does he mean by
' ' fashioning his thoughts to accommodate his incidents ' ' ? What
does he mean by "the idea of the tale"? Does he mean the
effect chosen or the theme? What is the difference between the
thoughts that are not to be fashioned to accommodate the inci-
dents and the idea of the tale — if by idea is meant the theme?
Be it noted again that apparently an effect may be either an
intellectual matter or an emotional matter, or both, according
to Poe, and that therefore an idea may be an effect,, and that
therefore the rule of unity of effect may apply to essays — which
may have no purpose but the presentation of ideas — as well as
to tales. Yet he distinctly denies that Hawthorne, whose essay
work he nevertheless commends, attempts effects in his essays.

Of the essays just named, I must be content to speak in brief. They
are each and all beautiful [but beauty is not an effect?], without being
characterized by the polish and adaptation so visible in the tales proper.
A painter would at once note their leading and predominant feature, and
style it repose. There is no attempt at effect [impression upon the heart
or intellect?] All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued.13

So "repose" is not an effect? Why might not an author
deliberately set out to produce an effect of quietness, thoughtful-
ness, tranquility — "repose"1! Clearly Poe is not here using
effect to signify merely impression, as he uses the term elsewhere.
What he apparently has in mind is novelty of effect or vividness
of effect. He is using the term as we use it when we say that
such a one is obviously striving for effect, or that such a thing
has been done solely for effect, using the term in a somewhat
depreciatory sense. This surmise is borne out by Poe's remark

12 Poe, VI, 117.

13 Poe, VI, 113.

184 University of California Publications in Modern PMlology [Vol.. 11

later that "Herein our author differs materially from Lamb or
Hunt or Hazlitt — who, with vivid originality of manner and
expression, have less of the true novelty of thought than is gen-
erally supposed, and whose originality, at best, has an uneasy
and meretricious quaintness, replete with startling effects un-
founded in nature, and inducing trains of reflection which lead
to no satisfactory result. ' '14 Again a few pages farther on he
presumably has somewhat the same use of the term in mind,
though here he defends the tale produced purely for startling
effect, possibly remembering that most of his own tales have
that reason principally, or only, for being.

It may be added here, par parentJiese, that the author who aims at the
purely beautiful in a prose tale is laboring at a great disadvantage. For
beauty can be better treated in the poem. Not so with terror, or passion,
or horror, or a multitude of such other points. And here it will be seen
how full of prejudice are the usual animadversions against those tales of
effect, many fine examples of which were found in the earlier numbers of
Blackwood. [Presumably he here refers to some specimens from the works
of the School of Terror.] The impressions produced were wrought in a
legitimate sphere of action, and constitued a legitimate although sometimes
an exaggerated interest.15

Here is suggested the point of the whole matter. "WTien Poe
was so confidently laying down the law that the story writer
should first choose deliberately the effect to be produced and
then model the whole in accordance therewith, he was laying
down the law not for the writing of all kinds of tales, but for
the writing of tales of effect, the kind of tale in which he himself
so markedly excelled — that kind in which the writer has really
nothing of importance to say, no series of incidents to relate that
are significant because of their bearings upon the problems of
life or their use as illustrations of life — that sort of tale of
which "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a master repre-
sentative. In short, Poe was formulating a law for a genre and
giving the law universal application.

i* Poe, VI, 114.
is Poe, VI, 118.

1922] Eichardson: Foe's Doctrine of Effect 185

The very fact that Poe was so generally obedient to that law
in producing his verse as well as his tales, as though it were the
highest law, is ample ground for denying him the highest rank
both as poet and story writer. Too, too often he has nothing to
say, but he says that nothing exquisitely — in such a way as to
produce the maximum of the effect aimed at, unless the reader is
subtle enough or critically blase enough to discern or feel the
purely mechanical rationale of the whole. Too, too often he is
a mere doer of ' ' stunts, ' ' akin to the ' ' elocutionist ' ' who used to
entertain us by giving the effect of a grandiloquent oration to a
mere repetition of the alphabet.

After all, the story is the thing, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
The important thing for the story writer is to have an important
purpose, and the more important the purpose the better. The
aim to produce a feeling of horror, or sadness, or amusement,
merely for its own sake, is not a very high aim, though often
harmless and legitimate — even useful. A story that achieves
such an effect consummately may be "great" in one sense —
as "The Fall of the House of Usher" is great of its kind— but
is great in another sense only if that kind of thing is greatly
worth doing — that is, if it has profound significance as a revela-
tion, illustration, or criticism of life. There are stories that do
have such significance, but in by no means all of them is there
unity of effect, or even unity of tone (if that is anything differ-
ent), for which every word and turn of phrase must count, nor
indeed any unity except possibly the unity of purpose — the
intent to tell such things and only such things as will appear
to the reader an organic whole of importance to him because of
its thought value as well as emotional stimulus. The writer may •
fail of organic unity embracing the whole — as witness Hardy's
"The Three Strangers" and Kipling's "The Man Who Was,"
in which there is much that is hard to justify on logical grounds.
Even in such cases we may say that the unity of purpose is
evident in all except the excrescences ; which are inartistic inas-
much as when the work is viewed as a whole with a due regard
to the dominant purpose they are seen to be divagations and

186 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

non-essential, however interesting they may be in themselves.
If, however, the writer has achieved a worthy purpose greatly,
he has written a great story, in the best sense of great.

The story is the thing. If a writer has a great story to tell,
he may trust its greatness to atone for many defects in the
artistry of telling and may count confidently upon it to produce
a not unpleasing complex of effects, which may or may not be
resolvable into a unit of effect — a thing to be desired, but not
necessary.

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERARY
CRITICISM

HEEBERT ELLSWORTH CORY

In the sturdiest of our recent volumes of literary criticism
Professor Irving Babbitt called upon us to make a synthesis
of all that is good in impressionism and in judicial criticism.
But he himself was content to retire, with the statement that
such an ideal is perhaps "a golden impossibility," into habits
that are largely those of the pre-romantic judicial critic. Many
a young American will never cease to be grateful to Irving
Babbitt for broadening perspectives by insisting on philosophical
implications and by denying the isolation of literature from other
life-currents. But it may be hoped that it would not seem
disloyal even for a professed disciple of Irving Babbitt to press
forward more hopefully towards this yearned-for marriage of
judicial and impressionistic criticism even at the risk of becom-
ing too impressionistic for the time being.

A similar situation confronts our American philosophers.
Some absolute idealists do not relish any talk whatsoever about
the emotions and their relation to the reason. Other philoso-
phers, idealistic, pragmatic, and realistic, will admit that the
relation of the reason and the emotions is a most harrowing,
omnipresent problem some pronouncement on which constitutes
a categorical imperative for all sincere logicians and epistemol-
ogists.

Psychologists who use the psychoanalytic method might begin
by quoting a few sentences from the literary criticism of Mr.
John Cowper Powys.

The world divides itself into people who can discriminate and people
who cannot discriminate. This is the ultimate test of sensitiveness; and
sensitiveness alone separates and unites us.

190 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

We all create, or have created for us by the fatality of our temperament,
a unique and individual universe. It is only by bringing into light the
most secret and subtle elements of this self-contained system of things that
we can find where our lonely orbits touch.

Such a statement as this reminds us of "William James ' rather
jaunty declaration that the history even of dread philosophy is
to some degree a history of clashing temperaments. Somewhat
similarly, we are told by Professor Ralph Barton Perry that
at a certain stage in our reflections we find ourselves in what
he calls ''the ego-centric predicament." This "predicament" is
not to be escaped by being dubbed a "predicament" or by any
mere horror of ' ' solipsism " or by any gibes at ' ' the renaissance of
Greek sophistry. ' ' Nor is it to be escaped by any epistemological
subtleties. David Hume may smile at Rene Descartes for being
too easily certain of his own existence and a modern idealist
may insist that we can know ourselves logically only through a
knowledge of some more really real superpersonal being. But
after we have followed reverentially all this fine dialectic we
will find our own logic and that of our idealistic friends con-
stantly tripped up in the crucial situations of life by certain
impressions which seem to us all the more intimately ours by the
fact that logic left us quite unaware of them, and which seem
to come from what the man in the street and the artist call
"temperament." And the judicial literary critic finds that
one after one the canons which he considered so adamantine in
their reasonableness evaporate before the triumphant youth of
some artist who cannot give his reason for breaking the critic's
law. Having taken due note of these tragic and comic hap-
penings the psychoanalyst concludes that there are such things
as temperaments and he sets out to describe them — and to
redirect them, which is to marry impressionism with judicial
criticism. For a while he finds it necessary to risk the charge
of solipsism, of anarchistic impressionism, of anti-intellectualism.
But it is most unjust to call him an anti-intellectualist since his
ultimate mission is to purge the intellect of its insincerities.
Surely no philosopher, whether or not he believes that the rational

1922] Cory: Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism 191

is the real and the real the rational, will maintain that the
rational is the insincere. You may read in Doctor Bernard
Hart's Psychology of Insanity of demented people with "logic
tight compartments" who are quite consistent in their lunatic
philosophy of life if you grant their presuppositions. Now
philosophers are especially interested in presuppositions. Well,
while they are indulging in their interest the psychoanalyist
would like them to pay some attention to that peculiar un-
acknowledged presupposition known as a "complex," i.e., an
idea or a constellation of ideas strongly suffused by emotions
which often influences the most cunning logician when he is least
aware of it. Complexes influenced also judicial critics as sensi-
tive as Sidney and as shrewd as Johnson and betrayed them into
literary estimates which arouse our pity or amusement today
when we think of the splendid poems of which they denied them-
selves enjoyment and of the radiant young poets whom they
vainly attempted to crush.

There is only one way of studying these "complexes" and
their strange subterranean discoloration of judgments which we
long to be "eternal" in their validity. This way is not, as some
ignorant or fearful people imagine, the way of self-indulgence.
Nor is it, as others fancy, the way of morbid introspection. It
is a long discipline. You sit down and study yourself not in
a comfort-breeding or a fear-breeding sanctum sanctorum but
aloud in the presence of a trained analyst who never interferes
except to say "No thoroughfare" every time you drift into
an artificial mood, be it self-righteous or self-condemnatory,
exquisite or sordid. People who pique themselves on their
"intellectual honesty" may not think this hard. Let them
try it. It is not the heinous or the hideous or the nasty things
of one's life that it is hard to face in the presence of this im-
placable comrade. It is the ceaseless revelation of pettinesses and
trivialities, of our infinite craft in search of false security. It is
the inevitable recognition that ideal after ideal and practice
after practice that we thought most consecrated prove on closer
scrutiny to be but quasi-austere attempts to run away from

192 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

ourselves in some ' ' compensatory activity. ' ' These are the mat-
ters which make the face grow pale and the features taut, that
evoke once more old symptoms of maladies out of past years.
This discipline we cannot get out of books. Nor can we hasten
through it. If we really want to discover our "complexes,"
the relation between the reason and the emotions, the love which
can unite all that is lovely in impressionism and all that is sane
in judicial criticism, we must be prepared to work patiently
with a psychoanalyst for months, perhaps for years. Life is
said to be short. But if we want to know that brief life at all
deeply we should never be miserly with time.

The marriage of impressionistic and judicial criticism, then,
can be consummated only by each individual for himself — with
a Virgil at his side, not a guide, but an almost silent comrade
through all the long Limbo and Tartarus. This is but to echo
Kant's great presupposition of the moral autonomy of the indi-
vidual.

But there is another fundamental contribution which psycho-
analysis has to make to literary criticism. We quoted John
Cowper Powys as saying that "The world divides itself into
people who can discriminate and people who cannot discrim-
inate." People who cannot or dare not discriminate call the
others "critics" and say that "critics" are faultfinders who
squeeze all the joy out of art and life for themselves and for
everybody else. The philistine is not altogether wrong. The
critic feels and disseminates keener pleasures, yes — but what of
those keener pains? Is life worth living at such a height? The
critic thinks so because he is interested in those we call neurotics.
To adopt a broad classification used with telling courage in
psychoanalysis by Doctor Trigant Burrow we may divide man-
kind into the great, decreasing majority of thought-fearing, vege-
tative normal beings, the growing minority of abnormal and
subnormal (i.e. hopelessly insane and feeble-minded), and the
growing minority of neurotics. Neurotics are those who will not
compromise excepting by the torturing of their own flesh and

1922] Cory: Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism 193

thoughts, while normal people are content to compromise through
the medium of various equivocal institutions.

Mr. W. Trotter, in his Instincts of the Herd in Peace and
War, has placed before us with unusual sweep an issue which
the study of evolution has insistently forced upon our attention.
"We see man today," he writes, "instead of the frank and
courageous recognition of his status, the docile attention to his biological
history, the determination to let nothing stand in the way of the security
and permanence of his future, which alone can establish the safety and
happiness of the race, substituting blind confidence in his destiny, unclouded
faith in the essentially respectful attitude of the universe towards his moral
code, and a belief no less firm that his traditions and laws and institutions
necessarily contain permanent qualities of reality. Living as he does in a
world where outside his race no allowances are made for infirmity, and where
figments however beautiful never become facts, it needs but little imagin-
ation to see how great are the probabilities that after all man will prove but
one more of Nature 's failures, ignominiously to . be swept from her work-
table to make way for another venture of her tireless curiosity and patience.

Now there can be no doubt that the normal, unthinking mobs,
both "educated" and uneducated, would readily enough plunge
themselves into pestilence, war, death, any form of race suicide
which gave any promise of saving them from the painful con-
tingency of thinking. But this the neurotic will not let them
do. Being uncompromising he tends to live at what Mr. William
McDougall in his Introduction to Social Psychology calls the
fourth level of conduct "in which conduct is regulated by an
ideal .... that enables a man to act in the way that seems to
him right regardless of the praise or blame of his immediate
social environment. ' ' He writes poems, essays, plays, novels, he
plans revolutions, he formulates scientific hypotheses of stagger-
ing emancipatory power. And for these things the normal people
crucify him. But his will is done. Mankind lives on with a
destiny more spacious than ever.

Now psychoanalysis may be regarded as the science which
endeavors to teach the neurotic how, by tapping hitherto undis-
covered reservoirs of his own energy and by learning a more
delicate tactic, he may escape crucifixion or some other premature
disaster and yet live his uncompromising life, assuming the bur-

194 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

den his fellows shirk, atoning for their sins, with all that joy
which has always rewarded him at some moments of his life
now expanded into a more enduring joy, a less excited joy, a
joy which is as warm as ever but quiet. Nobody, then, is more
fitted to be a literary critic, a savior of poets, than the psycho-
analyst himself.

When psychoanalysis and literary criticism have been named
together hitherto we have been asked to think of certain specific
contributions to the details of esthetic theory, like Doctor Sig-
mund Freud's profoundly satisfying book on wit, or of analyses
of famous characters in books, like Doctor Ernest Jones' investi-
gation of the influence of the ''mother-complex" on Hamlet's
irresolution, or studies of the new implications of myths, like the
speculations of Doctor C. G. Jung and his followers. That
psychoanalysis itself is but the multifarious observations and
classifications of literary men now reduced to scientific work-
ability and precision by the organizing influence of certain
hypotheses has been shown by the founder of psychoanalysis
himself in his Delusion wnd Dream. That literary men have
anticipated even some of the scientific method of psychoanalysis
will be revealed particularly to students of the Russian novel.
It is amazing, for instance, to see how unerringly Chernyshevsky
in What is to be done stumbled with his enchanting whimsicality
and tenderness upon some of the probable meaning of dreams
almost half a century before Freud's ingenious dogmas quickened
scientific research. But it seems to me that the most funda-
mental basis for the recognition of the affinity of psychoanalysis
and literary criticism lies in the consideration of psychoanalysis
as the science which seeks to wed the reason and the emotions
(judicial criticism and impressionism) and as the science which
aims to conserve all that is finest in the neurotic and give to him
new strength for its wider propagation.

ANDROCLES AND THE LION

ARTHUR GILCHRIST BRODEUR

ANDROCLES AND THE LION

ARTHUR GILCHRIST BRODEUR

So far as I can discover, no one has ever succeeded in deter-
mining the origin of Apion's famous story, De Androcle et
Lewie. The question is one which merits the attention of medie-
valists as well as of classical scholars : for it is generally conceded
that the episode of the Grateful Lion in Chretien's Yvain — and
in many other medieval romances, ballads, exempla, and tales1—
owes much to the Greco-Latin story of Androcles.

The story of Androcles first appears in the Nodes Atticae-
of Aulus Gellius, who attributes its authorship to Apion the
Egyptian, called Plistonices, and quotes the greater part of his
account verbatim from Apion's lost ^gyptiaca, or Treatise on
Egyptian Affairs. That which Gellius does not directly quote,
he summarizes in a few brief sentences between extended
quotations. He is very careful to distinguish quotation from
summary, sprinkling numerous inquits throughout the passages
quoted, and indicating his own summaries by the use of dirit
followed by the accusative and infinitive. We can hardly doubt,
therefore, that the account given by Gellius is, with the exception
of a few sentences, a literal transcription of Apion's original
story.

1 E.g. the cycle which revolves about Henry the Lion (see W. Seehausen,
Michel Wyssenherres Gediclit, ' ' Von dem edeln Herrn von Bruneczwigk,
all er iiber mer Fure," in Germanistische AMandlungen, XLIII, 1-173);
the legend of Golfier de Las Tors (see P. Meyer, CJianson de la Croisade
contre les Albigeois [Paris, 1879], II, 378-80).; Legenda Aurea, ed. by Th.
Graesse (ed. 2, Leipzig, 1850), pp. 655-7; the German Wolf dietrich-poems ;
the Dano-Swedish ballads belonging to the Henry-cycle (Grundtvig, Dan-
marks Gamle Folkeviser, II, no. 114, pp. 608 ff.), etc. I shall soon publish
an investigation of the sources and development of the Grateful Lion story
from the beginnings to the present time.

2 Book V, chap. xiv.

198 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

, in the De Natura Animalium,3 also relates the story
of Androcles ; and though his version varies somewhat from that
given by Gellius, it appears certain that both writers drew their
material from the same source: the lost JEgypiiaca of Apion.4
There is no evidence that either Gellius or ^Elian knew of the
existence of any other source, or that any other version of the
Androcles existed.

It has become the fashion to seek the origins of classical tales
in the Orient; in the particular case of our story, Mr. 0. M.
Johnston's brilliant presentation of the Oriental theory still
stands,5 although his arguments have lost much of their force
since Gottfried Baist's shrewd attack upon him in 1910.6

Mr. Johnston cites two striking analogues to the story of
Androcles, one of which was brought from India to China and
turned into Chinese by the great traveller and pilgrim, Hiouen
Thsang, in the seventh century A.D.T This tale relates the adven-
ture of a hermit with a herd of elephants, from the foot of one
of which the hero draws a splinter of bamboo. The elephants,
in gratitude, bestow gifts upon the hermit, and supply him with
food. The second analogue is another Indian tale: the story
of the Raja's Son and the Princess Labam.8 The Raja's Son
plucks a thorn from the paw of a tiger, and is rewarded with
the substantial assistance of the tiger and its mate in his fight
against two terrible demons.

3 Book VII, chap. XLVIII.

4 In Book XI, chap. XL, ^lian cites Apion as his source for certain
statements concerning natural prodigies in Egypt. This seems to be a refer-
ence to the dEgyptiaca.

5 In 1901 Mr. Johnston published an article entitled "The Episode of
Yvain, the Lion, and the Serpent in Chretien de Troies," Proceedings of
the American Philological Association, XXXII, pp. li ff . ; and in 1907 he
published a longer paper, under the same title, in Zeitschrift fur franzosiche
Sprache, XXXI, 157-66. When I refer to Mr. Johnston 's opinions in 1901
and in 1907, I refer to these two articles.

6"Der dankbare Loewe, " Eomanische Forschungen, XXIX, 317-319.

? Summarized from S. Julien's Memoires sur les contrees occidentales,
a translation of Hiouen Thsang (Paris, 1857), I, 180-1. See Zeitschr. f.
franz. Sprache, XXXI, 161-2.

8 Zeitschr. f. franz. Sprache, XXXI, 162 ; see Indian Fairy Tales, col-
lected and translated by Maive Stokes (London, 1880), pp. 153 ff.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 199

Parenthetically, I must point out that Mr. Johnston neglects
to relate the end of this second analogue, in which the tigers
show their gratitude. If we consider the denouement, the two
Indian stories coincide with the Androcles in three essential
features: (1) A man plucks a thorn from an animal's foot;
(2) in gratitude, the animal provides him with food, and (3)
defends him against his enemies. The completeness of the
parallel seemed so convincing to Mr. Johnston that he assumed
a greater antiquity for the Indo-Chinese tale than for the
Androcles ; and he accordingly elaborated the following theory :

The existence of these two Oriental stories establishes the
essentially Oriental character of the type to which they belong.
The Story of the Elephants — ^originally East Indian — must be
older than the Androcles. ''Before the Christian era this
Indian story had passed to Africa, where it was connected with
Androcles, and known under the title of Androcles and the Lion.
This Androcles legend was carried to Rome about 30 A.D. by
Apion . . . ., whose version of the story is preserved by Aulus
Gellius."9

This was Mr. Johnston's opinion in 1901. Before I pass to
his second article on the Lion, which was published in 1907, let
me point out that one of the three elements which constitute the
parallel between the Androcles and the two Indian analogues
has no bearing upon the origin of the Androcles story. The
motive of the grateful animal's defense of its benefactor, which
is present in the story of the Raja's Son and the Tigers, does not
appear in the Story of the Elephants; and it is precisely the
latter which Mr. Johnston believes to have been the source of
the Androcles. This same motive appears in ^Elian's version,
but not in Apion 's own account, which is preserved virtually
word for word in Aulus Gellius.

In 1907, Mr. Johnston, having discovered the fable of The
Lion and the Shepherd in the eleventh century collection of
Ademar de Chabannes, accepted Hervieux's theory that all of

Proc. of Am. PhiloL Assoc., XXXII, p. li.

200 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Ademar's fables were more or less literally translated from
Phaedrus. Now The Lion and the Shepherd is merely a clumsy
and late version of the Androcles ; but neither Mr. Johnston nor
Hervieux appears to have been aware of that. It was clear to
both scholars that Ademar 's fable and the Androcles are basically
the same tale. Hervieux, having found that thirty out of sixty-
seven of Ademar's fables are close enough to the preserved fables
of Phaedrus to have been translated from them, came to the con-
clusion that all the remaining thirty-seven were likewise drawn
from Phaedrus; and Mr. Johnston agrees: "This fable is the first
in the third book of Phaedrus, the composition of which Hervieux
places at a period when Tiberius was still living. Hence we may
place the date of the composition of the fable of the Lion and
the Shepherd at about 35 A.D."10 This is not inconsistent with
Mr. Johnston 's argument in his earlier article, for he adds : ' ' the
story may have been circulated at Rome, however, some time
before it was put into written form."11

According to Mr. Johnston's own estimates, "some time"
cannot mean more than five years, since he supposes Apion to
have imported the tale into Rome when the Egyptian first came
there, about 30 A.D., and since Phasdrus may have published his
fables about 35. It is worth mentioning, however, that Mr.
J. P. Postgate assigns a later date to the Phaedrian fables :
"Seneca, writing between A.D. 41 and 43 (Consol. ad Polyb. 27),
knows nothing of Phasdrus, and it is probable that he had pub-
lished nothing then."12

Mr. Johnston believes that the Indian story of the Elephants
was brought somehow to Africa, there distorted into a story of
a lion 's gratitude to one Androcles, carried from Africa to Rome
by Apion about 30, "circulated" there for five years, and
written down about 35 by Phaedrus. If he is right, then Apion
must have ' ' circulated ' ' it. But Apion, who himself wrote down
the story of Androcles in the fifth book of his JEgypti-aca, declared

10 Zcitschr. f. franz. Sprache, XXXI, 164.

11 Idem, 164.

12 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. 11, XXI, 341a.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 201

that the story was not one which he had heard or read, but that
he had seen it take place, in the flesh, with his own eyes, in the
amphitheatre at Rome.13 If he told the truth, then he could
not have picked it -up ready-made in Africa and ''circulated"
it at Rome. Nor could Phsedrus have written it down before it
appeared in Apion's jEgyptiaca: for neither Gellius nor JElian
nor any other Roman author ever attributes it to anyone but
Apion, or shows any knowledge of its existence in the works of
Phaedrus. The question of Apion's sources, then, turns at least
partly upon the problem of his veracity.

Partly; but it may be as well to dispose of certain miscon-
ceptions before considering that problem. First: there is no
ground for the assumption that Phsedrus ever wrote a fable
concerning a grateful lion. Certainly he could not have written
such a story by A.D. 35. Apion, according to Baron von Gut-
schmid, wrote the JEgyptiaca between the close of his first visit
to Rome (c. 30-37) and his second visit in 40.14 This seems
reasonable, since the Egyptian's reputation at Rome during the
years of his first visit seems to have been that of an entertainer
and a commentator on Homer rather than that of a writer on
Egyptian affairs,15 and since the period between 40 and 48 — the
year of his death — was apparently filled with his activity against
the Jews and his duties as a teacher.16 While Tiberius lived,
Apion enjoyed the greatest notoriety at Rome, and possessed the
favor of the Emperor.17 His reference, in the Androcles, to
Caesar's magnanimity, seems to fit the character of Tiberius
rather than that of the mad Caligula.18 Phaedrus, then, who

13 " . . . . hoc autem, quod in libro ^gyptiacorum quinto scripsit, neque
audisse neque legisse, sed ipsum sese in urbe Roma vidisse oculis suis con-
firmat. 'In circo maximo' iiiquit 'venationis amplissimae pugna populo
dabatur. Eius rei, Romae cum forte essem, spectator' inquit 'fui. ' " Gel-
lius, Noctcs Atticae, loo. cit.

i* Kleine Schriften von Alfred von Gutschmid (Leipzig, Franz Riihl,
1893), Bd. 4, No. XIII, pp. 357-8, 359.

is Pliny, Naturalis Historia, Praef. 25; Gutschmid, op. cit., 359; Seneca,
Epist. 88.

16 Gutschmid, loc. cit.; Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, 8, 1.

i? Pliny, loo. cit.

is Gellius, Nodes, loc, cit.

202 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

could scarcely have had access to the ^gyptia-oa until Apion's
return to Rome in 40, could not have written down in 35 a fable
drawn from a treatise not then in existence. True, he might
have heard Apion tell the story orally, between 30 and 37—
if we are willing to disregard Mr. Postgate 's evidence against the
early publication of the fables of Phsedrus. But this, too, is
unlikely; nor is it probable that the story of Androcles was
circulated at Rome before Apion himself wrote it down. Apion
reported the Androcles story as a thing which he had seen in
Rome, from the moment of the Ijon's entry into the Circus until
the ultimate conclusion. Well known as he was, he would scarcely
have dared to represent the affair as one he had seen in so public
a place if the story, at that very time, were either circulating
at Rome or written down by Phaedrus. Nor would Phaedrus have
written down as his own a story popularized by Apion 's treatise.
Finally, the utter silence which Gellius and JElian maintain,
so far as the existence of a Phaedrian grateful lion story is con-
cerned, is evidence enough that Phasdrus never wrote anything
of the kind. The truth is that the common attribution of the
fable of the Lion and the Shepherd to Phaedrus rests on insuf-
ficient evidence. An interesting reconstruction of it may be
found in Thiele's Der lateinische ^Esop.19

The most casual examination of the text of Ademar de
Chabannes will show that his fable of the Lion and the Shep-
herd could not have been derived directly from Phaedrus or
from the text of any other Roman writer. Ademar 's version is
full of misunderstandings : the hero is not an escaped slave, like
Androcles, but a shepherd ; the emperor — ' ' Caesar ' ' — appears in
Ademar as "rex," and the Circus Maximus as "lacus." If
Ademar "transcribed" this from Phaedrus, then Phaedrus knew
less of his Rome than the veriest provincial could have told him.
The only possible explanation of Ademar 's ridiculous misunder-
standings is that he derived his fable, not from Phsedrus, but

is Heidelberg, 1910. See esp. EinL, pp. CCXIII ff. For "The Lion and
the Shepherd," consult Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, ed. 1 (Paris,
1884), II, 516-17; ed. 2 (Paris, 1893), I, 23, 243.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 203

from some late descendant of the Androcles, some distant offshoot
which had, somewhere in its ancestry, undergone the vicissitudes
incident to oral transmission, or to Christian lack of compre-
hension.

Secondly: the story of Androcles has nothing to do with
any known Oriental tale. The analogues cited by Mr. Johnston,
close to our story as they are even in essential features, prove
nothing. The tale of the Tigers has no claim to antiquity.
Indeed, as it stands, this story is a combination of two types:
(1) the Grateful Beast, and (2) the Helpful Animals associated
with a hero by reason of his destiny or the circumstances of his
birth ; animals which assist him — because they are his animals —
in performing certain difficult tasks imposed upon him. This
second type is a form of the story which Mr. Hartland calls
"The King of the Fishes."20 There are many tales current in
Europe — mostly late — which show this combination of the two
types I have mentioned.21 The fusion has its origin in a natural
tendency to explain the assistance of Helpful Animals as an
act of gratitude for service rendered; but it is nevertheless a
confusion, and argues against any assumption of great antiquity
for the story in which it occurs.22

The story of the Elephants is, of course, much older. Brought
to China in the seventh century, it must have existed in India
for some time before. But we have no right to assume that it
had existed for more than six hundred years before it first
appears in any collection. Nor would a story of grateful
elephants easily pass into a story of a grateful lion, or exchange

20 E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (London, 1894), III, 3 ff . ;
I, chap, n, and pp. 58 ff.

21 Kg., the Jutish tale, ' ' Dragedraeberen og bans Broder, " in J. F.
Kristensen, Jydske Folkeminder (Aarhus, 1897), vol. 13, pp. 170-176.
See also F. W. V. Schmidt, Die Haerchen des Straparola (Berlin, 1817),
pp. 215-39.

23 In general, stories belonging to the three types ( 1 ) Grateful Animals,
(2) Guiding Beasts, (3) Helpful Animals, are confused by scholars quite
as often as they seem to have been confused by the folk. It is inevitable
that the lines should cross; but for that reason there is all the more need
for precision in definition and for clarity of distinction. I hope to discuss
these three types at length in an article which I shall publish soon.

204 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

a setting confined to swamp and forest for the scenes in the
desert, the Circus Maximus, and the streets of Rome. Moreover,
the elephants, in the Indo-Chinese story, are not really animals
at all, but supernatural beings. ' ' In return for this kindness ' '-
I quote Mr. Johnston's summary — "the wounded elephant gave
the hermit a golden casket, containing a tooth of Buddha. The
next day being a day of fasting, each elephant brought the
hermit rare fruits."23 The lion, in the Androcles, is very much
and very delightfully an animal. I shall return to this point
shortly.

No sounder criticism of Mr. Johnston 's attitude toward these
Oriental tales can be made than that expressed by Baist, in his
article, ' ' Der dankbare Loewe ' ' :

' ' Seine ' indische Version ' aus einer neueren Sammlung ist verdorbener
Androkles juengsten Datums, zurueckgegebener engliseher Import, die Ein-
fuehrung der liebenswuerdigen Tigerin schmeckt naeh Gouvernantenlitera-
tur . . . ." (Referring to the Chinese story) "Johnston freilich schlieBt
aus der Umwandlung des Loewen in einen Elefanten auf urspruengliehe
Beheimatung in dem 'lion-haunted Orient.' Wenn er sich dabei 9. 166
auf eine Aeusserung von Cosquin ueber den buddhistischen Charakter des
Tierdankes stuetzt, so hat vorlaengst Beufey Pantschatantra I, 222 die
Antwort gegeben : ' SchlieBlich will ich uebrigens nicht unbemerkt lassen,
dass der Gedanke von der Dankbarkeit der Tiere alien Ansprueh darauf hat,
fuer eiiien allgeraeinen menschlichen gelten zu koennen, sich also auch in
unabhaengig von einander entstandenen Gebilden auszusprechen vermag. ' ' '2*

This is true : the conception of an animal 's gratitude for a service
rendered is not restricted to any one quarter of the earth; it
may arise anywhere, or independently in many different places.
To be sure, grateful animals abound in Oriental story; but
anyone who cares to investigate will find that though most of

23 Zeitschr. f. franz. Sprache, XXXI, 161-2.

2* Rom. Forscli. XXIX, 318. E. Cosquin 's opinion is interesting, if not
valuable (Romania, X, 141) : "Cette idee de services rendus a des animaux,
d 'animaux reconnaissants, est une idee toute indienne. ' ' This is sheer non-
sense. Anyone can recall hearing stories of the gratitude of animals from
the lips of children, even children so shut off from the influences of educa-
tion that the stock stories never reach them. Such stories rise wherever
men and animals come into contact. Yet Cosquin rightly says: "D'apres
1 'enseignement boudhique, 1 'animal et 1'homme sont essentiellement iden-
tiques"; it is precisely this fact which distinguishes the Oriental Grateful
Animal stories from the type of the Androcles, in which the beast is a real
beast, not human at all.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 205

these contain the same kernel as the tales cited by Mr. Johnston,
scarcely any of them contains the thorn-motive. So far as I can
find, the two which he mentions, and one unimportant variant,25
are the only recorded Oriental tales which do contain the thorn.
Yet all these Eastern stories are essentially of one type : a man
befriends an animal, and the animal rewards its benefactor. The
nub of the story is always the gratitude of animals, usually as
opposed to the ingratitude of man ; and the purpose is invariably
moral. Often the animal is a supernatural being which has
taken animal form for a definite purpose ; it is never a real beast,
like the lion of Androcles.26 One may actually use this last
point as a test : the story of Androcles, together with its derivates,
stands almost alone among stories of grateful animals in that
it deals, not with Bodhisatvas, genii, enchanted princes, or other
non-feral creatures, but with a genuine beast. It is a story of
the nobility which man's kindness may evoke in the heart of
an animal.

Moreover, though there are occasional — very occasional —
helpful lions in Oriental stories, I have been unable to find a
single Oriental instance of a grateful lion.27 Therefore, the con-
cept of the gratitude of beasts being universal, and grateful lions
being unknown to the Orient, we may assume that Apion found
his material for the Androcles elsewhere than in a tale which
came from the East. Here again Baist's criticism is just:

"Der Loewe wird um so grossmuetiger, je weniger man mit ihm zu tun
hat; wo er in der arabischen und indischen Literatur mir als menschen-
freundlich begegnet 1st, ist's ein Wunder Allahs, ein Zauber, oder 1st das

Tier ein Bodhisatva Das sind Gruende, die. sich fuer Entstehung in

einem minder loewenbeglueekten Lande geltend machen lieBen. ' '28

25 Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, No. 12, pp. 63 ff.

28 The nature of the Oriental Grateful Animal stories may be illustrated
by a reference to the Indian story of ' ' The Serpent, the Ape, the Tiger, and
the Man" (Pantschatantra II, 128-132, Benfey's translation). The ani-
mals all show gratitude; the man is grossly ungrateful. The supernatural
element in such tales appears clearly in the Thousand and One Nights
(G. Weil, Tausend und Mine Nacht (Stuttgart, 1838-41), I, 271 ff., in the
tale of the 70th Night. A grateful serpent turns out to be a spirit.

27 See Weil, Tausend und Eine Nacht, II, 327 ff. The lion here is
obviously a guiding beast which, by confusion, has become a helpful animal ;
but he is not grateful, and has nothing to be grateful for.

28 Bom. Forsch., XXIX, 319.

206 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

But if there is no evidence of a story of a grateful lion before
Apion's story of Androcles, and if the material for that story
was not derived from Oriental sources, where may we look for
its origins ? I believe we must accept, in part and circumspectly,
Apion's own statement that he saw the incidents of the story in
the amphitheatre at Rome. I shall soon show that Apion was
a professional liar; nevertheless his own declaration, in this
instance, is supported by the testimony of a respectable and
respected authority. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, in his De Bene-
ficiis,2g alleges that he saw a lion, in the amphitheatre, spare one
of its intended victims, a bestiarius, and protect him from the
attacks of other beasts. The reason for the lion's clemency,
Seneca adds, was that the bestiari'iis had formerly been its
trainer.30 Comparison of this report with Apion's account of
the scene in the Circus Maximus will show clearly where the
Egyptian received his inspiration.

Moreover, in this unpretentious statement of Seneca's we
find two of the three essential analogies between the Androcles
and Mr. Johnston's Oriental tales: (1) We may infer, from the
lion's action, that it had experienced kindness from its trainer,
and that its ready defense of him was inspired by gratitude; (2)
it is plainly said that the lion defended the hero from his adver-
saries.31 The first of these — the gratitude shown by a lion to a
man who had befriended it — is the kernel of the Androcles.

If Seneca spoke truth, then we have here an account of an
actual incident, which may have served as Apion's source, and

29 II, chap. 19.

30 Loo. cit. : ' l Leonem in amphitheatre spectavimus, qui unum e bestiariis
agnitum, cum quondam ems f uisset magister, protexit ab impetu bestiarum. ' '

si Of course it is only fair to say that this second feature does not occur
in Gellius's account, and therefore could hardly have appeared in Apion's.
It is 'distinctly expressed, however, in ^Elian, who certainly used Apion.
Perhaps _<Elian knew Seneca's account as well as Apion's Androcles story,
and drew the most striking features from each.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 207

beyond which we need not go for Apion's version of the scene
in the amphitheatre. It should be remembered that Apion did
not pretend to have seen the episode in the desert which he rep-
resents Androcles as describing in the presence of the Emperor.
This episode in the desert is a distinct portion of the story, and
contains the motivation for the scene in the Circus Maximus.32

No unprejudiced man could believe that Apion really saw
quite what he described in his Androcles story as Gellius quotes
it. The thing is too fantastic, too embroidered, too sophisticated.
But Seneca's account is entirely credible, and rests upon the
authority of his sound reputation. Yet the only difference
between the two versions of the amphitheatre scene is a difference
in motivation and in treatment ; the basic facts are similar. The
problem resolves itself into two parts : first, a collation of data
concerning the times when both Apion and Seneca were at Rome ;
and secondly, an examination of their relative truthfulness. For,
as I have already said, much depends upon Apion's veracity.

Apion, as we have seen, was at Rome between 30 and 37 A.D.,
and again, after a lapse of years, from 40 to 48. The JEgyptiaca
was apparently written between 37 and 40.33 Since Apion, in
this book, declared that he had seen the episode of the lion in
the Circus Maximus, he must refer to a real or fictitious incident
in his first visit to Rome. During almost all the period of that
visit, Seneca was in Rome, having returned to the city in 31,

32 Baist (Horn. Forsch. XXIX, 318-319) saw the possibility that Apion's
story might reflect an actual occurrence, and cites an historical parallel
(p. 319, footnote 1): "Im Jahre 1875 gab es auf der Madrider plaza de
tor os eine Erkennungsszene zwischen dem Stier und einem Hirtenjungen.
Das Tier wurde auf Verlangen der Menge begnadight und dem Knaben
gesehenkt. ' ' But Baist, apparently in ignorance of the incident reported
by Seneca, did not see fit to commit himself. His reason for doubting an
historical basis for Apion's account is that "Den Splitter laeBt sich kaum
die zahme Hauskatze gutwillig herausziehen, geschweige das Raubtier der
Wildnis. " The existence of Seneca's version, and my hypothesis that
Apion concocted the entire desert-scene, thorn and all, to motivate the
touching pictures in the arena and in the city afterward, should dispel
Professor Baist 's doubts.

The reader will appreciate the striking parallel between Baist 's historic
instance and Seneca's account of the mercy shown by a lion to his former
trainer. Surely no one, in the light of this example, could deny Seneca's
veracity.

ss Gutschmid, op. tit., 357-9.

208 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [VoL 11

and remaining there until his banishment in 41. He was in
exile from 41 until 49 — until one year after the probable date
of Apion 's death.34 If he' really saw the incident which he relates
in the De Beneficiis, he may well have seen it during the very
period which was enlivened by Apion 's sojourn in the city.
Indeed, that period offers more scope than any later in his life,
since he seems to have been at work upon the De Be-neficiis by

54 A.D.35

The two men were, therefore, both in Rome at the same time,
for a space of at least six years. During this interval, they may
well have seen in the Circus Maximus just such an episode as
Seneca relates. If so, we may assume that Seneca reported the
plain, unvarnished facts, and that Apion, for the sake of a good
story, wove a romance around the same occurrence.

But the assumption requires evidence that Apion was the
sort of man to embroider the truth. This evidence is at hand.
It is in the Androcles itself: the story is fantastic on its face.
But there is plenty of external evidence -as well : Apion 's own
contemporaries and followers confirm the testimony which falls
from his own lips — the testimony that, brilliant, learned, mag-
netic as he was, he was none the less a deliberate liar and
charlatan.

In his account of the Androcles story as Gellius reports it,
Apion declared that he saw the lion spare Androcles, fawn upon
him, and — after the slave's release — follow him from tavern to
tavern, held only by a light leash, while the people showered
money on Androcles and flowers upon the charming animal.36
He does not make it clear how the most savage of lions was
prevented from reverting to its natural violence, nor how the
freedman managed to supply it with raw meat. Now, it was
Apion 's greatest folly that he could not resist the temptation
to bolster up his stories by declaring that he had seen them

s*Een6 Waltz, Vie de Seneque (Paris, 1909), pp. 56, 85 S.; Walter
Clode, The Morals of Seneca, (London, 1888), pp. vii-viii, xiii (Camelot
Series).

ss W. Clode, op. tit., p. xiii.

ss Gellius, Nodes, loo. oit.

1922] Brodeur : Androcles and the Lion 209

occur. It was he who popularized the tale of the dolphin that
loved a boy ; this, too, he alleged, he saw with his own eyes.37 He
once said that he had raised spirits from the dead, and com-
muned with Homer : this boast roused the skeptical anger of the
elder Pliny, who branded him a liar.38

Nor was Pliny alone in this opinion. JElian apologizes for
repeating Apion 's report of the prevalence of two-headed cranes
in Egypt39 (for these also Apion claimed to have seen, and in
great abundance) ; Josephus accuses him of scurrility, ignorance,
immorality, falsehood, vanity, and charlatanism, and by an in-
direct quotation from Apion himself proves at least the last two
charges.40 But the clearest testimony comes from Aulus Gellius.
who was clearly an admirer — if a critical one — of Apion. After
praising the Egyptian's knowledge, of literature and science,
and referring specifically to the "wonders" in the JEgyptiaca,
he says:41 "Sed in his, quae vel audisse vel legisse sese dicit,
fortassean vitio studioque ostentationis sit loquacior — est enim
sane quam in praedicandis sui venditator "

37 Gellius, Noctes, VII, 8.

ss Naturalis Historic, XXX, 18: "Quaerat aliquis, quae sint mentiti
veteres Magi, eum adulescentibus nobis visus Apion grammaticae artis
prodiderit cynocephaliam herbam, quae in ^Egypto vocaretur osiritis, divinam
et contra omnia venefieia .... seque evocasse umbras ad percunetandum
Homerum, quanam patria quibusque parentibus genitus esset, non tamen
ausus profited, quid sibi respondisse diceret. "

39 De Natura Animalium, XI, 40.

40 Contra Apionem, II, 1, 2, 13.

41 Noctes, loo. cit. Baron von Gutschmid (op. oit., 358, 365 ff.) makes
a strange attempt to defend Apion from the charge of untruthfulness, and
is accordingly obliged to accept the Androeles and the tale of the dolphin
that loved a boy as literally true. He naively suggests (p. 358) that the
very conclusion of the story — the wildest part of all — may be explained
away by assuming that Androcles had been an animal trainer — as if that
could account for the peaceful procession of a fierce lion from tavern to
tavern! Yet Gutschmid calls this conclusion "der unverdaechtige SchlufJ. "
Of course the original who unconsciously posed for Androcles had been an
animal trainer ; but Gutschmid does not seem to have known Seneca. Gut-
schmid attempts to dispose of the criticisms of Pliny, ^Elian, and Josephus
by aspersing them (365ff.), bringing charges of plagiarism against Pliny
and ranging himself too acrimoniously on Apion 's side in the Egyptian's
anti-Semitic activities. Pliny does not plagiarize; he carefully acknowl-
edges his indebtedness to Apion in his lists of authorities, ^lian also gives
his sources. Gutschmid 's abortive attempt to justify Apion affords an
interesting example of that which happens to the best of men when they
become devil's advocates.

210 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Apion, then, was a brilliant, unscrupulous notoriety-hunter,
who used tongue and pen, without regard for truth, to increase
his own fame. So much seems evident. If, as I assume, he and
Seneca had both been present in the Circus when a lion showed
clemency to one who had been its trainer, it is quite possible and
probable that in Seneca 's account we have the true report ; and
•it is equally probable that Apion, whose facile imagination saw
in the incident good ' ' copy ' ' for an interesting story, seized upon
it for purposes of profitable fiction. The Androcles as we know
it is the result: a highly embroidered phantasia on an unusual
but credible theme. This is the method of the modern yellow
journalist, in whose activities Apion, could he return to earth,
would find congenial occupation.

Of course, Apion could not have published his tale immedi-
ately after the event : the truth must have been too fresh in the
minds of the populace. Then, too, he would scarce have dared
spread a story featuring " Caesar" until after Caesar's death,
for Tiberius knew Apion well, and was necessary to his con-
tinued success at Rome.42 But after the Emperor's death, and
after the actual facts had ceased to be a nine days' wonder, the
story of Androcles could safely be given to the world. Since
Apion left Rome in the very year of Tiberius 's death, it would
have been natural for him to write down his story in the interval
between that year and his second visit to Rome.

42 Gutschmid, op. cit., 357 ; Pliny, Nat. Hist., Praef., 26.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 211

. HI

The principal source and starting point for Apion's story of
Androcles and the Lion was, then, not an Oriental tale, but an
actual historic incident, which took place at Rome between 31
and 37 A.D. ; which Seneca and Apion both saw; and which
Seneca faithfully reports. But this does not preclude the pos-
sibility that Apion was already acquainted with some story,
classical or African, concerning the gratitude of an animal.
Such a story may indeed have furnished him with ideas or with
the inspiration for the elaboration of the actual incident into
his wonder-story of Androcles. At first sight, it seems that we
must adopt some such hypothesis to account for that portion
of the story which Seneca's report does not explain: the first
meeting of the fugitive slave with the lion, in a cave in the
African desert ; the piteous pain of the injured beast, the removal
of the torturing thorn — in short, that whole section of the story
which supplies the motivation for the final scene in the amphi-
theatre. In particular, the nature of the slave's service to the
lion is too close to the situation in Mr. Johnston's analogues to
be dismissed without explanation.

Yet I believe that we need not assume any such contributory
source from folk lore. Though Apion must have known stories
of grateful animals — he must have known an amazing number
of odd stories — we need attribute no more to them than the mere
expansion of the motive already present, by inference, in Seneca :
the motive of gratitude. We must not ignore the possibilities
latent in that "lively imagination" which Gellius imputes to
Apion,43 and which the circumstances of his career abundantly
confirm.

In short, we must recognize the fact which leaps at us from
every line of Gellius' transcript: Apion's tale is not folk-lore at

, VI, 8; "facili et alacri facundia fuit."

212 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

all, but sheer sophisticated fiction. The episode in the arena —
mere fact decorated; the desert scene preceding and motivating
it — what is that but a part of the whole carefully constructed
plot?

Consider the man: clever, resourceful, infinitely tricky and
ambitious.44 Born a member of a despised race,45 he made him-
self the protege of an emperor and an authority on Homer.46
Greece and Italy were set on fire by his lectures; he founded a
school and created a science.47 The greatest men of the age and
the age that followed may have recognized him for the brilliant
mountebank he was; but they had to reckon with him. Even
the indignant Pliny must acknowledge indebtedness to his re-
searches, not once, but again and again.48

What would this Apion do, then, with such a story as the
incident in the Roman amphitheatre furnished him ? His nimble
brain would seize it at once, play with it, till some glorious idea
leaped forth to show him how to make the most of such a chance.
"Why should the lion spare one who had been its trainer?"
Apion would ask himself. "Plainly, the man must have been
kind to it. Yes, but we must have some particular act of kind-
ness. What?"

Apion was born at Oasis, in the Egyptian desert.49 In his
day, lions still abounded in Egypt ; and the desert there is richly
supplied with thorns. Apion could not have been ignorant of
the fact that lions invariably prefer to haunt just such regions :50

44 Pliny, loc. tit. Note especially Praef. 26. See also Josephus, Contra
Ap., II, 13.

45 Josephus, op. tit., II, 3. He succeeded in fooling even Gellius, who
supposed Apion to be a Greek (Nodes, VI, 8), so well had the Egyptian
hidden the facts concerning his race and birth.

46 Seneca speaks of Apion 's Homeric learning in the highest terms
(Epist. 88).

47 Gutschmid, op. tit., 357, 359. Tiberius called Apion ' ' Cymbalum
mundi. ' ' ( Pliny, Praef., 25 ) . The Emperor obviously understood his real
character, but apparently enjoyed his society.

48 The NaturaUs Historia, Book I, contains a list of authorities for every
book; and Apion 's name occurs in these lists fairly frequently. Gellius, as
we have seen, recognized his wit and learning, but doubted his truthfulness.
Tatian (Oratio ad Graecos, XXXVIII), speaks of him in terms of the
warmest praise.

49 Josephus, op. tit., II, 3.

so Encyclopaedia, Britanndca, ed. 11, XVI, p. 738&.

1922] Brodeur: Androcles and the Lion 213

sandy waste, with plenty of thorn-cover. What more natural
than for him to remember this, and to realize that a lion, in such
a region, might easily get a thorn into its paw? He may even
have seen, in North Africa, a captured lion with feet lacerated
by thorns. "We need not look to folk lore for a feature which
any North African might pick up from observation. "Good!"
Apion may well have reflected, "The slave shall pluck a thorn
from the lion's pad, and bind up the suppurating wound!"

The rest: the hero represented as a runaway slave; the
manner in which the grateful beast purveyed him food, and the
slave's subsequent capture — all these Apion 's own supple imag-
ination could easily have concocted. We do not have to assume
a recollection of elephants bringing food to an Oriental hermit.
' ' But Androcles must eat ! How shall my hero find food in the
desert ? Why, of course ! The lion will hunt it down for him ! ' '
And — no folk lore reminiscence this, but the sign manual of the
conscious artist — his grateful beast brings its benefactor the best
cuts !51

It is easy — too easy — to assume that all the features of every
tale must be derived from some definite folk lore source. To be
sure, the scholar must undertake a careful search for such a
source ; but it is not always necessary or wise to deny all power
of imagination to the individual author. Popular tales must
always be tested when they have passed through the hands of
a clever, unscrupulous agent; and Apion was nothing if not
sophisticated. In fact, he was not so much a reporter of tradi-
tion as a conscious and distinguished writer of fiction. He had
the privileges, and he possessed more than the abilities, of the
average modern writer of thrilling novels. Blind adherence to
that point of view which denies the possibility of deliberate,
inventive embellishment altogether ignores the personal element
in the literature of all ages; it ignores the creative power of a
Boccaccio, of a Chaucer, of a Shakespeare, no less than the
genuine, if perverted genius, of an Apion.

51 Of course I have broadened and burlesqued Apion 's mental processes ;
but such a burlesque is justifiable in that its very exaggeration helps to
reveal his work as fabula ficta.

THE LITANY IN ENGLISH

JANE GAY DODGE

THE LITANY IN ENGLISH

JANE GAY DODGE

The Great War has given us to understand many needs and
customs of the past which had appeared outworn. A small lesson,
among others, has been that we have learned to listen to some
words of our forefathers with understanding heart. Out of
public calamity originally grew that form of prayer which we
call by its Greek name — the Litany ( \iTaveia ) . Ears dull by
custom, or young hearts impatient of the "medieval forms,"
may, before 1914, have thought only contemptuously of a prayer
to be delivered "from battaile and murther, and from sodaine
death." Battle had vanished into the past, murder into the
pages of yellow journalism ; and for, rather than against, sudden
death we prayed, if indeed we prayed at all. A mild interest in
the prison reforms of Thomas Mott Osborne was our connotation
for the word ' ' prisoner. " " Captives ? ' ' Vague schoolday mem-
ories of Richard Coeur de Lion touched what seemed the quaint
wording of the prayer into mere ancient romance.

Now we know why men pray. For a moment at least even
the forms of prayer which have maintained themselves through
centuries take on an intrinsic interest apart from sectarian
source or theological debate. I have before me two of
the many forms of prayer which were made in English
to satisfy the desires of men's hearts. One is called
A Form of Humble Prayer to Almighty God / to be
used on Sunday, / the third of January, 1915, / Being the
Day Appointed for Intercession / on behalf of the Nation and
Empire / In this Time of War. / Issued under the Authority of
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. / The other is the
American Church Service used for the American Expeditionary
Forces in Bordeaux by the Young Men's Christian Association.

218 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

I have been told of the moving beauty of great congregations
united in supplication under forms so wide apart as these ; the
impressive thing to one who is interested in following the intri-
cate ways of literary influence is that neither form would have
had its special character without that form of prayer put forth
at a moment of public calamity by Thomas Cranmer. Men try
to get away from the diction and cadence of the sixteenth century,
lest their prayers be vain repetitions ; they pray in baseball lingo
or in the familiarities of the stock market ; but let a general public
calamity befall, and those prayers which have widest appeal are
those framed in the perfection of beauty. For a similar reason,
no doubt, it was the Te Deum sung by multitudes in the Cathe-
dral of Strassbourg which truly symbolized the victory of 1918,
rather than the unorganized rejoicings of men who had no tradi-
tional religious art-form in which to express themselves.

Much special attention has been given the Collects by the
literary critic.1 The Litany too forms a unit which from its
history and nature is easily separable from the rest of the liturgy
in English. The kind of literary influence exerted by the Prayer
Book as a whole is specially exerted by the Litany, both in echoes
of its responsive form of petition2 and in the amalgamation into
general literary diction of many of its most striking phrases.
In the following pages I propose to look at the Litany in English
as the result both of age-long growth and of conscious artistry.

The characteristic form of petition which bears the name of
litany, a series of short prayer sentences with responses in repe-
tition, goes back, like so much else in Christian liturgy, to the
dimness of the earliest moments. One of the most characteristic

1 See John Shelly, ' ' Ehythmical Prose in Latin and English, ' ' in The
Church Quarterly Review, April, 1912; Albert C. Clark, Prose Ehythm in
English (Oxford, 1913); Gladys Wolcott Barnes, "The Five-Fold Prayers,"
in Poet Lore, January -February, 1918; Morris W. Croll, "The Cadence of
English Oratorical Prose," in Studies in Philology (January, 1919).

2 Swinburne seems to have been haunted by the litany forms. One of
the chief sources of ironic effect in many of his poems comes from the
introduction of anti-Christian ideas in a form so long connected with
Christian worship. It is of course not merely the English Litany which
echoes through Swinburne's poems, but especially the long Litanies of
the Virgin. For some examples see A Litany, A Christmas Carol, A Song of
Italy, The Litany of Nations.

1922] Dodge: The Litany in English 219

of these responses indeed — Lord have mercy — merges into both
Hebrew and Greek pagan prayer phrase.3 It is the inevitable
speech of the human soul in abasement. With the growth of
ritual the clergy tends to be responsible for the increasing elab-
orations, so that, were this tendency not paralleled by renewed
attempts to save some part of prayer specially for the congre-
gation, the lay group would become more and more audience and
less and less partakers in worship. The greatest prayers of the
ages seem to represent a successful attempt to preserve this par-
ticipation of the entire religious brotherhood in worship. The
Lord 's Prayer is but the supreme example. The conditions under
which it was taught make this relation to Jewish ritual perfectly
clear.

The earliest record of the use of litanies connects these prayers
of the people with some public disaster. At such moments it
is not enough for the people to be an audience ; they must take
part themselves. This participation is most naturally achieved
by means of re-adapting the refrain to purposes of religion —
the very source of its primitive origins. In the usage of the
"Western Church the popular and local character of the litany
increased, whereas its liturgical character was reduced to the
barest remnant, the Kyrie Eleison before the Mass. The popular
devotional use developed by the almost unlimited inclusion of
saints' names in the invocations, by its regular use after Terce
on all ferias in Lent, by its connection with disaster and conse-
quent penitence ; so that it is only consistent with natural growth
that the Litany was one of the chief parts of the Latin service
which was early translated into English for the private use of
the laity. This Middle English translation4 it is highly inter-
esting to compare with the form put forth by Cranmer in 1544.
By such a comparison it may be possible to isolate some of Cran-
mer's special qualities of composition.

s Compare Psalm LI and Epictetus, Diss. db Arriano, ii, 7.

4 For an example of these translations see The Prymer or Lay Folks'
Prayer Book, ed. by Henry Littlehales, Early English Text Society, Orig.
Series 105, 109.

220 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Thus far we have in mind the briefest summary5 of the early
growth of the Litany. No doubt much of this formation was
dependent too upon ecclesiastical artistry of a conscious sort, but
one can vouch for scarcely more than the customary medieval
anonymity. In 1544 we come to the moment when for the first
time the Litany in English was authoritatively ordered for public
and official use. The letter from Cranmer to the Bishop of
London6 giving the mandate for such public use emphasizes two
of the motives which mark the special character of the litany :
public danger, and the popular participation in prayer, now felt,
by the reformers at least, to be impossible unless the prayer be
in the vernacular. The Primer translation was but for private
devotions, so that this official translation marks a new step.
A passage from another letter6 from the Archbishop the next
year restates the war motive most picturesquely, the French fleet,
being before Portsmouth at the moment ; and adds still a third
motive, which is characteristic of Cranmer, and which, once the
reforms were in full swing, substituted but one Litany in English
for the many in Latin, namely, the ideal of uniformity.

The exact relation of the Litany of 1544 to its sources and
to later revisions may be studied by the help of the intricate
four-column arrangement in Brightman's English Rite. There
one may see how few and relatively unimportant have been the
changes made in the Litany since Cranmer was responsible for
the special kind of organic beauty which, in spite of an eclectic
method altogether extraordinary, does characterize his work.

The most notable change in proportion introduced by Cran-
mer results from a striking omission which he made. For reasons

s For a complete history consult Proctor and Frere, A New History of
the Book of Common Prayer (London, 1911 (1905)) and F. E. Brightman,
The English Bite (London, 1915). The first has an excellent bibliography,
and the second is even more full in material for comparison of various
stages of growth in the liturgy than J. H. Blunt, Annotated Boole of Com-
mon Prayer (1895).

6 These documents are reprinted in Cranmer 's Miscellaneous Writings
and Letters (Parker Society, 1846), pp. 494-497. For a discussion of the
exact relation of these letters to the single known "procession in Eng-
lish," namely, the Litany of 1544, and to Cranmer 's probable first intention
of translating the entire Latin Processional see F. E. Brightman, ' ' The
Litany under Henry VIII," in English Historical Review, pp. 101 seq.
(January, 1909).

1922]

Dodge: The Litany in English

221

of theological reformation, of course, the numerous and variable
invocations to the saints common to Latin litanies have been
omitted, or rather, in 1544, summed up in three Invocations, to :

Holye Virgin Mary mother of God:

All holye Aungels and Archaungels and all holye orders of blessed
spirites :

All holye Patriarkes, and Prophetes, Apostels, Martyrs, Confessors, &
Virgins : and all the blessed company of heauen :

In 1549 these three also are omitted in deference to the increase
of the reforming spirit. In either case, the Invocations, whether
four or seven, take their place as an introduction, majestic and
exclamatory, marked off in manner from what is to be the body
of the prayer. In the older litanies the invocations themselves
become the main portion. In the example printed in the Early
English Text Society, for instance, there are seventy-five invo-
cations to saints as against thirty-five other suffrages between the
Ne Keminiscaris and the Pater Noster.

Cranmer inserts the Petition, Kemember not Lord (Ne Re-
miniscaris) after the Invocations. Here it serves as an intro-
ductory appeal before the more detailed requests. Then come
five Deprecations — the spiritual cleansing of the people that no
evil be left to interfere with the special requests ; then the Obse-
crations introducing the true body of the English Litany, seven-
teen intercessions (in addition to as many as may be necessary
for the royal family), prefaced by:

In all tyme of our tribulacion, in all tyme of our wealth, in the houre of
death, in the day of judgement: . . .

The concluding suffrage is a summary of special beauty :

That it may please thce to getie us true repentaunce, to forgeue us all
oure synnes, neglygenccs and ignoraunces, and to endue us with the grace of
thy holy spirite, to amend our lyves accordyng to thy holy woorde: ....

Then again come the Invocations, in the ancient Kyrie Eleison
form, and the Lord's Prayer. Here the original Litany form
would have ended. The three sections which follow (versicle

222 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

and response, prayer, intercession in time of war) form a little
litany, as it were, for special emphasis upon the war-time occa-
sion, concluding with a massed group of collects which provide
a somewhat prolonged close of dignity and quietness.

This structural relationship of the parts is marked by the
nature of the responses. For the first Invocations the responses
are exact repetitions of each preceding Invocation (in the three
omitted in 1549, however, the response was simply "Praye for
us " ) ; the Petition has ' ' Spare us good Lorde ' ' ; the Depreca-
tions and Obsecrations, "Good Lorde deliuer us"; the Inter-
cessions, "We beseche thee to heare us good Lorde"; the final
Invocations have the subtly complex form of the Agnus Dei and
Kyrie Eleison combined. The responses in the final section, for
the arrangement of which Cranmer is responsible, are also more
varied.

These four stereotyped responses and their relation to the
structure of the Litany Cranmer took from the ancient Latin
litanies in use in England ; his own characteristic method of
selection and variation, however, may be seen in the final section.7
Irritating and unreasonable to the liturgical mind, to the ear of
the literary critic this change provides a notable rise to the
Gloria Patri and then a return to the humble state of heart
phrased in the final versicle and response :

O Lorde, let thy mercie be shewed upon us.

The aunswere.
As we doe put our trust in thee.

The effect of this response is extraordinary. As over against
the bulk of cadenced prose in the Litany, this is of course a
perfectly regular line of four-accented verse. To my ear (in
spite of all sorts of musical settings, some of which try to make
a culminating crash of sound) the effect is that of a soul schooled
to regular, inevitable obedience, an amazing feat of emphatic un-
emphasis. Cranmer is responsible for it; he added verse 2 in
order to finish the sense of Psalm xliv, verse 1. This is a fair

See Proctor and Frere, p. 419.

1922] Dodge: The Litany in English 223

sample of the delicate literary sense which is worth noting in
Cranmer's work.

Not only did Cranmer shorten and unify the Litany by the
omission of intercessions; he intensified and gave weight to each
suffrage by combination and elaboration of phrase, so that the
single prayers become fuller, each one containing many more
chances for end-rhythm than did the Latin, thus, it seems to me,
making an equivalent in English, by phrase and pause, for the
more numerous syllables in the Latin base. This elaboration of
the suffrages throws the responses into relief, so that the congre-
gational character of the Litany is really made clearer than in
the Latin form, where priest and choir answered each other in
phrases of more nearly equal length.

In the combination and rearrangement of intercessions, in the
elaboration of a general idea, stated in the Latin by means of one
word, into an English phrase made of pairs or triads,8 in the
successful manipulation of stressed and unstressed syllables for
the desired effect of solemnity, Cranmer has shown the nicest ear
for the resources of the English language. Even more than in
the Collects, here is an example of cadenced prose, because there
are more phrase-endings in proportion to the whole number of
words, phrases, that is, which are punctuated in the original and
are therefore not dependent upon the individual reader. In
making this observation one is led at first to suppose with Shelly
and Clark that the medieval cursus in the Latin originals have
had a guiding influence. Certainly in the training of the ear
they must have taught any ecclesiastic to enjoy such end-rhythms.
But I have followed van Draat 's suggestion that it would be well
to compare some earlier translations of the liturgy with the six-
teenth century one, as another test of his theory that all forms

8 Compare, for example, these three forms:

Ut cunctos episcopas pastores et ministros ecclesiae in sano verbo et
sancta vita seruare digneris.

That )>ou kepe oure bischopis in holi religioun.

That it may please thee to illuminate all Byshoppes, pastours and
ministers of the Churehe, with true knowledge and understandyng of thy
woorde, and that both by thcyr preachyng and lyvyng, they may set it
forth and shewe it accordingly.

224 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

of the supposedly medieval Latin cursus are inevitably found
because of the nature of the English language, and that their
number is proportionately greater the earlier the specimen of
prose.9 The comparison of the Middle English litany printed in
E. E. T. S. Orig. 109 with the Litany of 1544 can hardly be exact
because of the difference of structure discussed above, but in
whatever way I make the count, even in that most unfavorable
to his theory, the results do sustain his thesis, that the proportion
of so-called native cadence, or better, final stress, is greater in
the more modern prose.10

9 P. Fijn van Draat, ' ' Voluptas Aurium, ' ' in Englische Studien, vol. 48
(1914), p. 394, and a series of articles by the same author in Anglia,
especially "The Cursus in Old English Poetry," Anglia, vol. 38 (1914),
p. 377.

1° In order to have two nearly comparable sections specially charac-
teristic of the Litany as such, omit the Petition and the Collects in both
litanies, the Invocations to the saints in the Middle English litany, and
take the thirty remaining requests which approximate each other in
meaning, with their responses, including the four Invocations without
their repetitions in the Litany of 1544. The number of cadence endings
is by this method reduced in the Middle English litany to a much lower
number than otherwise, and the number of final phrase stresses in the
Litany of 1544 is also reduced more than fifty per cent from the number of
stops which my own reading makes legitimate. Even if we count — as
difference in method of punctuation makes necessary for parallelism —
only the phrases before periods in the Litany of 1544, and those before
semi-colons and periods in the Middle English litany, the comparative
table will stand as follows:

Middle English Litany Litany of 1544

Final stresses: 6, due to Eomance words 10, in suffrages

3, indubitable end-accents 17, in responses

2, end-accents, but in suffrages
where suffrage and response
together make a perfect 6-3
ending

As I personally read the litany part in Middle English (including all
Invocations) and the Litany of 1544 (here also omitting the Petition,
Lord's Prayer, and Collects) a method which, though not at all verifiable
without printing both litanies complete, really does represent the two total
literary effects, the numbers are as follows:

Middle English Litany Litany of 1544

Final stresses: 11 48

Cadences: 127 46

If the Petition, Lord's Prayer, and Collects should be included, the
proportional increase of final stresses in the Litany of 1544 would be still
greater.

1922] Dodge: The Litany in English 225

Certainly we may say that Cranmer's ear allowed the vigor
and solemnity of the final accent in phrase or clause, so that this
device coincides with some of the most moving petitions, and with
some which occur most often in the half -conscious echoes of the
Litany of which modern literature is full. "The world, the
flesh, and the devil" with its 5-2 cadence is hardly more familiar
in. one's ears than "battle, murder, and sudden death" (3-1) ;
and the proportion of final beat to final cadence in the following
beautiful suffrage is three to one :

That it may please thee to strengthen suche as doe stande, and to coum-
fort and helpe the weake hearted, and to rayse up them that fall, and finally
to beate down Sathan under our feete.

The variety and color which the combination of cadence and
final beat give to' the balanced clauses, which are yet so subtly
varied in length, mark off Cranm'er 's Litany from the Latin and
earlier English forms. This ability to offer mighty and moving
petitions in phrases which thereafter shall become the outward
and visible sign of that particular inward and spiritual grace —
what is this but art, art of a kind to make English literature
debtor not only to the long creative process of anonymous compo-
sition, but to the archbishop who was, whatever he was not, a
lover and maker of solemn beauty in words.

THE LADY FROM THE SEA

SIGURD BERNARD HUSTVEDT

THE LADY FROM THE SEA

SIGURD BERNARD HUSTVEDT

The attitude of criticism toward The Lady from the Sea may
be conveniently summed up in an interrogation. "Why," de-
mand the indignant, "did Ibsen write thus, and not so?" The
devoted complain, "Why did he write so, and not otherwise?"
The devoted and the defiant alike profess to have discovered in
this play from the dramatist 's prime a faltering of technical skill,
particularly as regards the relation of subordinate elements of
plot to the main plot ; they profess also to have detected a certain
inward disharmony of ideas, symbols, colors, tones. Hence the
impatient or disappointed queries. Now Ibsen, though he posed
many questions, answered few, perhaps because it was a part of
his purpose to stimulate in society the interrogative habit of mind.
With respect to the methods and means of his art, at any rate,
he revealed little to the curious and still less to the merely in-
quisitive. As to The Lady from the Sea, in particular, he seems
to have been at some pains to conceal even from the prudent the
reasons for his writing thus and not otherwise. On February 14,
1889, in a letter to Professor Hoffory with reference to a pro-
posed presentation of the play in Germany, he made the follow-
ing comments upon one of the dramatis personae, the Stranger :
"Nobody should know what he is; just as little should anybody
know who he is or what he is really called. This uncertainty is
just the chief point in the method chosen by me for the occasion."
To Camilla Collett, the pioneer feminist of Norway, who had
written him touching a suspected resemblance to herself in the
character of Ellida, he replied, May 3, 1889, kindly but ambig-
uously, denying little, assenting not much more. Uncertainty
would appear to have been his chosen method throughout this
work. If The Ijady from the Sea be read as a free dramatization

230 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

of the Danish ballad of ' ' Agnes and the Merman, ' ' there will be
some ground to surmise how, if not why, Ibsen came to write a
comedy in such fashion.

It is not necessary in following this clue to insist overmuch
upon Ibsen's youthful interest in ballads, his activities as a col-
lector of popular lore, and his use of ballad motifs in the most
obvious form in early dramatic works, such as Olaf Liljekrans
and The Feast at Solhaug. To call attention to these facts, how-
ever, is to lend credibility to the hypothesis that in The Lady
from the Sea Ibsen returned, with characteristic persistency, to
his former love and wrote a ballad-drama which by the chosen
uncertainty of its method confounded the critics who had lifted
their eyebrows at the artless romanticism of his first heyday.

In sketching the probable origin of this appealing play it
may be permissible to ignore minute chronology for the sake of
setting forth the creative process in its assumed continuity. Ibsen
spent a great part of the summer of 1887 on the north coast of
Jutland. There he passed many hours walking along the beach
or gazing at the ebb and flow of the tide. He felt the attraction
and repulsion of the deep. He recalled the traditions with which
men from time unremembered had clothed their love or terror
of the sea, and the seductive or repellent beings with which the
imagination of the folk had peopled the blue shallows and gray
abysses. He thought of the mermen and mermaids of the blithe
Danish shore, of the nicker who lurks in the depths of Norway's
fjords, and of the headless "draug" who, in the guise of a sea-
man clad in dripping oilskins, coasts the wild Northern breakers
in his half-boat and brings fey men to their death in the waters.
He could hardly escape calling to mind the ballad of "Agnes
and the Merman, ' ' which the people of Jutland, over against the
English cliffs, had been singing for generations. Long before
this time he had himself expressed the conviction that folk poesy,
like all artistic production, ' ' has its origin in real life, in history,
in actual experience, and in nature." He created anew the for-
gotten reality on which the ballad was based and translated that
ancient reality into its modern counterpart. The result was

1922] Hustvedt: The Lady from the Sea 231

necessarily a realistic play with a highly romantic background.
The Lady from the Sea appeared in 1888.

The substantial agreement of the play with the ballad may
perhaps most clearly be brought out by a running commentary
on the text of "Agnes and the Merman" in the terms of The
Lady from the Sea. An attempt to demonstrate the connection
in all details would be tantamount to a denial of the dramatist's
originality. To ignore details would be to miss the cumulative
harmony. Ibsen did not painfully gloss the ballad for dramatic
purposes; rather he transmuted the ballad with poetic touch.
I shall try to point out what seems to be a palpable relationship
between play and poem. With regard to lesser details, I proceed
upon the conviction that Ibsen was not a pedant but an imag-
inative writer.

The ballad begins without prelude :

Agnes walks by the castle keep;
A merman rises out of the deep:

' ' Agnes, hearken to my plea,

O, will you be a true love to me?"

' ' I will, in faith, f orevermore ;

Take me but straight to the deep sea floor. ' '

He stopped her ears, he stopped her lips,
With her to the deep sea floor he dips.

Read Ellida's own story of her wooing by the Stranger. He
came to her from the sea, talked to her of the sea, and wedded
her with himself to the sea by the ceremony of flinging their
two rings "as far as ever he could into the deep water." No
more than Agnes did she have full command of her will in the
presence of the merman Stranger; for he was a Finn, born in
the land which according to Norse tradition is the home of occult
power. The significance of this detail will appear if it be re-
membered that Ibsen, in his early essay on "Popular Ballads
and Their Importance for Literature, ' ' contended that the myth-
ical beings of Northern superstition, persisting in the ballads,

232 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

had their natural ancestry in the swart Finnish mountain folk
who were neighbors of the prehistoric Norsemen while they dwelt
among the foothills of the Urals. Of this race was the Stranger.
So, when he went again to sea, he carried with him the wedded
soul of Ellida, who followed him in spirit as willingly as Agnes
obeyed the veiled command in the merman's plaint of love.

The ballad continues :

They dwelt there together eight full years;
Seven sons to her merman mate she bears.

Agnes sat by the cradle, singing;

She heard the bells of England ringing.

She steps to her merman lord straightway:
' ' O, let me go to the church this day. ' '

' ' Ay, to the church full well you may go, —
Then back to your children here below.

But when you come to the churchyard fair,
Do not unloose your yellow hair.

Within the church, whatever you do,
You must not pass to your mother's pew.

The priest will name the Lord on high;
Not even then cast down your eye."

He stopped her ears and lips once more,
And carried her to the English shore.

To Ellida 's overwrought imagination her betrothal to the
Stranger was as binding as marriage with book and banns. So
strongly did this persuasion take hold of her that the child born
from her subsequent legal union with another man had the sea-
eyes of the Stranger, was indeed his child. Long before that —
no sooner had the Stranger gone out to sea than she awakened
from her trance. As she confesses to Wangel : "I soon came to
my senses again. I saw how utterly stupid and meaningless the

1922] Hustvedt: The Lady from the Sea 233

whole thing had been." She had heard the bells of England
ringing, calling her back from a demonic attachment to sober,
conscious life. With terror she discovered that she was no longer
free. Like Agnes, she pleaded for release ; like the merman, the
Stranger did not peremptorily forbid her desire but insisted
quietly upon their irrevocable compact. He carried her to the
English shore, technically loosed from her romantic shackles, yet
virtually enmeshed in the fearful taboo which she acknowledges
in the words, ' ' When he was ready for me he would let me know,
and I was to come to him at once. ' '

The ballad runs on :

And when she came to the churchyard fair,
She straight unloosed her yellow hair.

And when within the church she drew,
Straight passed she to her mother 's pew.

The priest did name the Lord on high;
At that name she cast down her eye.

When Ellida, still fettered by her reckless promise, returned
to the fair concourse of normal humanity, she found there a
man who besought her love and thereby unwittingly brought her
redemption near. Would she have the strength to break the
dread taboo? The struggle is lightly touched in the play as in
the ballad. Ellida 's emancipation began when she unloosed her
hair through renouncing her imaginary wedded state in plighting
her maiden troth to him who later became her husband ; it pro-
ceeded one step farther when she entered her mother's pew at
the birth of her child; it progressed still farther when she cast
down her eye in recognition of a truer and better love than she
had known before. Yet, like Agnes, she had still only trodden
within the sacred precincts where freedom was to be had ; a final
renunciation and a final choice remained.

234 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

The ballad interlude marks the dramatic pause in the un-
folding of events :

"Agnes, tell me faithfully,

Where dwelt you eight years away from me?"

"I dwelt in the deep sea these eight years,
And bore seven sons to the man of the meres.

"Agnes, dear daughter, hear my voice,
What wage for honor was your choice?"

"He gave to me a golden band;

No better decks the queen's own hand.

He gave to me gold-buckled shoes;
Such gift a queen would not refuse.

And gave to me a harp of gold
To play, lest all my grief be told. ' '

To these moving lines the expository dialogue between Wangel
and Ellida forms a remarkable parallel. With the tenderness
of the ballad mother to her erring daughter the husband in the
play draws the confession of spiritual estrangement from his
wife's lips. He listens in sorrow but in wise forbearance to her
story of the golden gift of the Stranger's love, of the sea-child
whom she left behind with death, and of the sea-harp upon which
she has played these many years, lest all her grief be told. Ellida,
no less than Agnes, found confession good for the soul, and
through it was strengthened to meet the last supreme test.

That test was not long in coming :

The merman made a pathway broad
Up from the sea to the churchyard sod.

The merman through the church door paces;
All the little images turn their faces.

His hair was like the purest gold;
His eyes were full of grief untold.

1922] Hustvedt: The Lady from the Sea 235

"Hear me, Agnes, hearken to me,

The little children are longing for thee. "

"So let them long, and longing weep;
No more will I return to the deep."

"Think of the taller ones, think of the small,
Of one in the cradle most of all. ' '

"No more of the taller ones, nor of the small,
Of one in the cradle least of all. ' '

It is doing no violence to the text of the ballad to hold the
interpretation that Agnes was not wholly redeemed when she
broke the taboo by declaring her eerie marriage null and void
through the ceremony of unloosing her hair, by placing herself
again under her mother's guidance, and by submitting herself
once more to the protecting influence of holy church. By doing
all these things she came anew into the realm of choice where
she stood at the first. Knowledge, however, had followed upon
experience ; and the earth had become on the whole more attrac-
tive than the sea. In spite of the merman's touching plea for
the children, Agnes was led to choose the better way by her own
clear decision, fortified by familiar ties and perhaps by some
dearer attachment, which in related ballads often takes the shape
of a young lover playing upon a harp and so redeeming his true
love from the shades as Orpheus redeemed Eurydice.

In a like manner Ellida, also, regained the supremacy of her
soul. Her insistence upon freedom of choice between the Stran-
ger and her husband emphasizes the reality of the struggle in-
deed ; but this demand for the entire resumption of individuality,
characteristic as it is of Ibsen's thinking and harmonious with
the burden of his most significant plays, may easily be misin-
terpreted. Ellida, by her own confession, loved Wangel and his
children. Her pleading for liberty was not a propagandic avowal
of the "rights of women" — the championship of which Ibsen
expressly renounced — or the mere whimsy of an overstrained
imagination ; it was rather, as the climactic dialogue between her

236 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

and Wangel indicates, a comprehensible though perhaps unusual
manifestation of a desire for complete assurance of her husband 's
love. This assurance placed her, like Agnes, within the walls
of holy church, where she could meet the tempter unafraid.
There she made her decision in freedom and under the attendant
sense of responsibility.

If the ballad be thus regarded as the groundwork of the play,
it is not difficult to understand the peculiarly romantic cast of
The Lady from the Sea. To speak by way of parable, and not
by way of interpretation, this comedy marks the culmination in
the dramatist of a long conflict between the fascination of the
sea and the more prosaic demands of earth, between idealistic
romanticism and ethical realism, between the glorious breasting
of the waves by a poet whose heart goes out to remote", magnifi-
cent shores and the laborious plodding of the preacher over the
land where men live who require his sharp reproof and correc-
tion. Ibsen was a compound of poet and moralist; perhaps it
was for this reason that he became a dramatist. The Lady from
the Sea is his last markedly poetic play. Thereafter he reluct-
antly puts by harp and song as his curative and restorative
ministry becomes ever more imperative.

Through such a reading The Lady from the Sea gains in
beauty and harmony. More than that, it takes on increased sig-
nificance for the understanding of the dramatist's entire pro-
duction. The motif of the play is the summoning of a human
being out from a demonic captivity symbolized by the elemental
power of the sea. In The Feast at Solhaug appears the related
motif, also drawn from ballad sources, of a woman's captivity
symbolized by the elemental power of earth in the person of the
mountain king. In Peer Gynt the hall of the mountain king
opens and closes again. In John Gabriel Borkman, one of the
latest plays, John Gabriel, the miner's son, after a life of durance
to the precious metals of earth, staggers at length into the light
of day only to fall dead at the feet of his forsaken love. This
may with some reason be termed the key symbol of Ibsen's entire
artistry, by the aid of which all the plays may profitably be

1922] Hustvedt: The Lady from the Sea 237

read: the redemption of the earth-bound by the power of the
harp. He expressed this symbol in his own life when he forsook
his beloved but somewhat sombre native land to sojourn in exile
under the brighter skies of southern Europe and thence to ride
northward in spirit each night to knock insistently upon the
granite portals of the hall of the mountain king. In a deeper
sense he made this symbol his own by directing the whole strength
of his genius to the task of liberating the minds of men from
what he regarded as the prejudices and preoccupations that con-
fine those who are of the earth earthy. Such was his conception
of the mandate laid upon him : not art for art 's sake, but art for
the sake of more abundant life.

AN ESSAY ON GAELIC BALLADS

WILLIAM W. LYMAN, JR.

AN ESSAY ON GAELIC BALLADS

WILLIAM W. LYMAN, JE.

My purpose in the following investigation has been to study
the popular poetry extant in the Gaelic language with a view
to determining the existence or non-existence there of ballads in
the sense that modern canons of criticism have defined them.
That is to say, do there exist in Gaelic poems of the nature of the
English and Scottish ballads typically exemplified in Child's
collection? Hidden under the garment of the remote and un-
familiar Gaelic tongue may there not come to light another
"Chevy Chase," or "Sir Patrick Spens"?

This is a large subject for a paper of the limits necessarily
imposed by the attendant circumstances of this study, and this
limitation will, I trust, serve to excuse the somewhat arbitrary
selection and elimination of material which I have found un-
avoidable. I may add that this investigation has been under-
taken in a sort of terra incognita, for nowhere have I been able
to discover any discussion of the "Gaelic Ballad" as such. My
conclusions, therefore, whatever their merits, have the quality
of being original.

In approaching the whole subject the wisest method has ap-
peared to be to give, first, a typical specimen of Gaelic popular
verse and to apply to it the criteria of the ballad form. For
this form I have taken the generally recognized standards set
up by Child and by Mr. Kittredge.1 And I have chosen
for translation a poem out of J. F. Campbell's "Leabhar na
Feinne," an invaluable collection of the whole known body of
popular Scotch Gaelic poetry from the earliest times to the date
of publication.2 The poem is called "The Death of Diarmuid,"
and occurs on page 162.

1 Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads; Cambridge ed., with intro-
duction by G. L. Kittredge.

2 J. F. Campbell, Leabhar na Feinne : Heroic Gaelic Ballads, 1872.

242 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

The translation is as follows :

1. Listen to me a little if you desire a lay

Concerning the sweet company that is gone,
About Grainne and Finn the generous,

And the son of Duibhne of the woeful song.

2. The Glen-shee and the glen by its side

Where the voices of the deer and the blackbird were sweet,
Where the Fians often were

Eastward and westward after the hounds,

3. On that side of blue Gulban

Whose hillocks are the most lovely beneath the sun
It is often the streams were red

After the Fians hunting the deer.

4. They employed what was a great deceit

On the son of Duibhne of the ruddy color,
To go to Ben Gulban to hunt
The boar over whom weapons could raise no death-song.

5. "Oh, Diarmuid, do not answer the hunting,

And do not visit the deceitful chase,
Do not go near Finn MacCumhal,

Since he is in regret that he lacks a wife. ' '

6. "Oh, love of women, oh, Grainne,

Do not put shame on your husband.
I would answer the voice of the hunt

In spite of the anger of the men of the Fianna. "

7. They roused the beast from his sleep;

There was a watch over him above the glen,
Listening to the uproar of the Fians

While they were coming up keenly below.

8. The old boar of bitter poison

Came from Ballard of the Wild Boars.
Longer were his nails than the blade of a spear,

Stronger his bristles than the arrows from a quiver.

(Three stanzas omitted, in which the hounds are loosed and
the boar roused.)

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 243

12. He drew the spear from his bright, white hand

To thrust it into its body
But the shaft was broken in three,
Without any part of it in the boar.

13. He drew his old sword from its sheath,

And it giving victory on every field
And killed was the whole beast
And he came out after it sound.

14. Gloom came on Finn the generous,

And he threw himself westward along the hillside,
Because the son of Duibhne of the favoring arms
Had gone safe from the boar.

15. When he had been silent awhile,

He said, and evil was his saying it,
"Oh, Diarmuid, measure the boar

How many feet from snout to heel."

16. He did not refuse the entreaty of Finn,

And his coming from home was a regret to us.
He measured the boar on its back,

The son of Duibhne, whose step was not heavy.

17. "Sixteen feet for true measure,

Is the back of the wild boar."
"That is not its measure at all.
Measure it again, oh Diarmuid.

18. Oh, Diarmuid, measure it again

The opposite way of the boar minutely.
I promise you, you will get for it

The choice of the sore sharp-edged weapons. ' '

19. He measured it, but it was not a deed of luck

For the son of Duibhne whose step was not heavy.
The bristles of bitter poison pierced
The sole of the hero strong in fight.

20. "One drink for me from your palms, Oh Finn,

For my succour, good son of my king.

Since I have lost my strength and my power,

I am in sad case unless you give it."

244 University of California Publications in Modern- Philology [Vol. 11

21. "I will not give you a drink

Nor give quenching to your thirst.
It is little you did for my benefit,

And it is much you did for my sorrow. ' '

22. "I did not ever do you harm

There or here, east or west,
Except my going off with Grainne in secret,

And my getting her food under obligation."

23. Fell then with his wounds

The son of Duibhne. of the twining locks,
The greatly suffering son of the Fianna
On the hill west by south.

24. Powerful for the attracting of women

Was the son of Duibhne great in victory.
Love wooing has not raised its eye
Since the earth covered his face.

25. Blue and gray were his eyes,

Soft and smooth were his cheeks;
Strength and bravery were in that hero.

Noble he was yonder under his white skin.

26. They buried in one grave

On the lasting home of the wild boar
Grainne Ni Cormac in a mantle,

The two white hounds and Diarmuid.

In comparing this poem with the typical English ballad there
are a number of points which demand attention. First is the
general style of the whole poem, that indefinable and elusive
quality of language and rhythm which can only be appreciated
by one who reads the original, and which gives a genuine ballad
atmosphere. In .order to give some idea of this quality I quote
a stanza :

Dhuisg iad a bheist as a shuain

Bha f reiceadan air skuas an gleann

'G eisteachd re garaich nam Fiann

Is iad gu dian fo cheann.

This meter is typical for Gaelic narrative poetry of this sort.
The stanza is composed of four lines, with the second and fourth

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 245

rhyming, and with three feet to the line; a structure which
closely parallels that of the typical English ballad. Character-
istic of the Gaelic are the internal rhymes and assonances indi-
cated by the words in italics. Characteristic, also, is the variation
as to foot-structure, with the occasional introduction of an extra
syllable, as in the second line.

The second criterion to be applied is that of dramatic quality.
In this regard it will be found that this poem is essentially
dramatic since the narrative portion opens with dialogue, i.e.,
stanza 5, and the climax, where the drink is requested and re-
fused, is carried out in dialogue.

The third criterion of ballad character is the use of abrupt
transitions in which the imagination is left to fill up the gaps.
In this poem we find typical examples of this characteristic. We
realize that Diarmuid is reluctant to go to the hunt and that
Grainne fears for him, but we are not told the reason. We are
not told that Finn knew that the boar's bristles were poison, and
that Diarmuid would come to his death by their piercing his heel.
We are not told that Finn has the magic power of saving Duir-
muid by a drink of water from his hand. All these things are
left to inference. Further, we only realize the whole cause of
the catastrophe when Diarmuid says that he had eloped with
Grainne, Finn's wife. Finally, we do not know that Grainne
herself died of grief until we are told that she was buried in the
same grave with Diarmuid.

The fourth ballad characteristic is the use of repetition, or
repetend. In this poem such a characteristic is apparent. Finn
says, "Diarmuid, measure the boar," then "Measure the boar
on his back,-" and twice says, "Measure again, Oh Diarmuid."
There also exists in this poem a kind of repetition in the form
of parallel structure prevalent among English ballads, in stanza
21, for example, and in stanza 25.

The fifth ballad characteristic is the use of epithets. Here
also our Gaelic poem fulfills the requirement. The epithets are
perhaps not so prevalent as in some English ballads, but they
are nevertheless marked. For example, in stanza 12, occurs

246 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

' ' bright, white hand ' ' which reminds us of the ; ' lily white hand ' '
of English ballads. In stanzas 16 and 19 we have "light-footed"
(literally "of not heavy tread"). In stanza 23 occurs "of the
twining locks. ' '

Finally we see that certain conventional ballad situations are
an essential part of this poem. There is at the beginning of the
action, stanza 5, a warning of disaster well known to English
ballads ; and at the end a catastrophe as the result of disregard-
ing this warning. Grainne warns Diarmuid not to go to the
hunt, but he persists, and his death ensues. Then we find the
familiar situation where the person who causes the death of the
other refuses the entreaty of the dying man. In this poem Finn
is the relentless one and Diarmuid the victim. We find, further,
the familiar situation of the two lovers being buried in one grave,
and by the enemy. Here also is the added circumstance of the
faithful hound being buried in the grave as well.3

This ' ' Lay of Diarmuid ' ' judged by the standards of English
ballad poetry ought, therefore, to be called a true ballad. It
may be said, too, that the "Lay of Diarmuid" is a very good
ballad.

To make some generalization in regard to the other poems in
Campbell's collection is now necessary. It will be found that
there are many of these poems practically identical in character
with the "Lay of Diarmuid" discussed above. The first striking
fact to be noted about them is that practically all of them are
in one way or another connected with the cycle of legends cen-
tering about Finn and his Avarrior-hunter band, the Fianna. It
is not my purpose to describe this cycle save to state that it is
one of the great cycles of early Irish literature. It is on account
of this homogeneity of subject that Campbell named his work
' ' Leabhar na Feinne, " or " Book of the Fianna. ' '

In such a large body of poetry there would be naturally a
variety of types. The poems dealing with the story of "Diar-
muid and Grainne" appear to be the most direct and simple, as

3 Of. "Twa Sisters," Child, op. cit., No. 10; "Little Musgrave," ibid.,
No. 81; and the "Two Havens," ibid., No. 26.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 247

well as the most dramatic. Campbell gives six versions dealing
with Diarmuid's death and four containing other episodes of
the story of the lovers. But there is another type differing in
many ways from the Diarmuid lay. An example of this type
is found in the "Death of Oscar." Oscar is the knight of
chivalry of the Fians. He meets his death in the famous battle
of Gavra, where the Fianna is destroyed by Cairbre, high king
of Ireland. This battle is well known in early Irish literature,
a poem mentioning it occurring in the book of Leinster.4 It is
really the "Chevy Chase" of Gaelic popular poetry. Campbell
says that it is one of the most widely known of all Gaelic poems,
and that people still sing it in the islands.5 He mentions twenty
versions, giving nine in his collection. An almost identical ver-
sion is also printed in another collection of Gaelic verse by
J. G. Campbell.6 This version was taken down orally in Tiree,
in 1868, and is identical almost word for word with the version
in "Leabhar na Feinne, " which was first printed in 1762. On
account of its shorter length I have chosen J. G. Campbell's
version for analysis, but it is to be understood that any conclu-
sions formed in regard to it will apply equally to the longer
versions in J. F. Campbell 's collection.

The "Lay of Oscar," as it is called, is made up of forty-five
stanzas. A synopsis of the contents is as follows :

A lament opens the poem. Then we find Oscar, on the way
to a feast with Cairbre, addressing a woman whom he sees wash-
ing a shroud. She replies, telling him that he will die after
having slain nine hundred men. Then Oscar and his small band
go to meet Cairbre, who has advanced with a large host. A feast
begins, at which Cairbre picks a quarrel with Oscar, and the two
insult one another. The next day a fight takes place. Oscar,
at the head of his weaker band, fights with the greatest bravery
and slays nine hundred warriors. But he is finally mortally
wounded by a spear thrust from Cairbre. With a dying effort

4 Transactions, Ossianie Society of Dublin, I (1853).

s J. F. Campbell, op. cit., p. 180.

e J. G. Campbell, Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, IV, 33 ff.

248 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Oscar also pierces Cairbre with a spear. His followers then bear
Oscar away to the house of Finn. Finn arrives, but too late.
He says that he will cure Oscar, but Oscar replies that this is
impossible. The poem ends with a lament by Oscar and Finn.

The question now occurs, is this poem a ballad ? Is it a reed
Gaelic ' ' Chevy Chase " ? A survey similar to that applied to the
"Lay of Diarmuid" will decide this question. First, then, we
note that the style here is simple and direct, closely resembling
that of the ' ' Lay of Diarmuid. ' '

Next we note that the poem is dramatic in structure, almost
half of it being carried out in dialogue. Especially, the eleven
stanzas before the concluding stanza are a very vivid and dra-
matic dialogue between Oscar and Finn, the general purport of
which is that Oscar does not mind his wounds, " . . . . it is only
the weeping of his people that pains him"; while Finn laments
that he did not himself fall in Oscar's stead.

Thirdly, we find that the action is strikingly characterized
by abrupt transitions. For example, stanza 4 begins with a
speech of Oscar: "Wierd woman, that washest the garments,
make for us the same prophecy. ' ' But nothing is said about his
having met such a woman. After the woman makes the prophecy
the next stanza takes us at a leap to where a feast is in progress
at the house of Cairbre. Then, after we are given a description
of the fight, Oscar speaks abruptly, "Lift me with you now, Oh
Fianna. ' '

Further, there is a marked use of the repetend in this poem.
In stanzas 13 to 15 a kind of refrain is repeated, " 'Lasting
words those, lasting words,' said Cairbre the Red." Beginning
with stanza 18 there is a striking use of repetition in the use of
the expression "five score" in the first line of each stanza refer-
ring to men of various classes, and continuing thus for five con-
secutive stanzas. In the last two lines of these five stanzas occurs
again a kind of. refrain, "They fell by the hand of Oscar there,
And disgrace went to the men of Ireland. ' ' Lastly, in the final
dialogue between Oscar and Finn, in four consecutive stanzas,
Finn uses the expression, "It is worse off you were, my son,"

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 249

giving various occasions, and Oscar replies, "My healing is not
to be obtained. ' '

There are also to be noted in this "Lay of Oscar" typical
ballad situations and devices. In stanzas 4 and 5 we find the
warning of disaster, the warning coming from a woman washing
a garment. This is undoubtedly an example of the well known
Celtic "Washer of the Ford," who washes the death shroud of
him to whom she appears. In several parallel versions of this
poem this episode is preceded by one in which the raven, the well
known bird of ill-omen of folk literature, also predicts Oscar's
death.7 Then in stanzas 14 and 15 we notice the exchange of
boasts. Oscar tells Cairbre, "That he would put the spear of
nine enchantments, where his beard and hair met." Cairbre
retorts to Oscar, ' ' That he would put the spear of seven enchant-
ments between his kidneys and navel." And both fulfill their
boasts. Next we see that the numbers seven and nine are fre-
quent in this poem. These8 are the favorite numbers in Gaelic
popular poetry, corresponding to seven and three in English
ballads. Finally, we observe in stanza 34 that Finn tells Oscar
that he can heal him, and Oscar replies no, his wound will never
heal, for the spear is too deep in his side. This answer and reply
under similar circumstances is a common ballad device typically
illustrated in the English ballad of "Young Johnstone."9

The "Lay of Oscar," therefore, clearly partakes of the nature
of the true ballad. Very similar is another Gaelic popular poem,8
"The Lay of Manus," which reveals even more strikingly the
characteristics of the genuine ballad. The subject of this poem
of seventy-one stanzas, with its numerous versions, is the combat
between Finn and Manus, king of Lochlin. It is a ballad of
great spirit and dramatic force. Between these two types of the
"Lay of Diarmuid" and the "Lay of Oscar" lie the greater
number of the poems in Campbell's collection, perhaps five-sixths
of the whole.

7 Campbell, Leabhar na Feinne, pp. 182, 183, 191.

s Cf. "Lay of Manus," Leabhar na Feinne, p. 74, stanzas 30 ff.

» Child, op. tit., No. 88.

250 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

But it is not to be supposed that all the poems represented
in the collection are true ballads, and it therefore becomes neces-
sary to offer some criterion by which to separate the wheat from
the chaff. At the very outset of this endeavor I wish to em-
phasize a peculiarity of the two ballads already discussed, a
peculiarity which appears in all popular poems whatever which
are connected with the Fenian cycle. This is the occurrence of
the use of the pronoun of the first person referring to a narrator.
In the "Lay of Diarmuid" it occurs once in stanza 16, line 2,
"And his coming from home was a regret to us." In another
version of this lay10 orally taken down in 1881, and identical
almost word for word with the older version, we observe certain
slight deviations in regard to the use of this personal pronoun.
In line 9 of the later version we note, "As we sat on the blue,
Ben Gulban," and in the last stanza, "We buried in the same
mound." Still another version of the "Lay of Diarmuid" is
instructive for our purpose.11 In this version the use of the
first personal pronoun does not occur at all except in a final
stanza which does not appear in the other two versions, as follows :

' ' On this night, though I be wretched

There was once a time when I was not weak.
Without lack of men, arms or feasting.

Behold how everything in the world changes for me."

This stanza, as well as the appearance of the first personal
pronoun noted in the other two versions, would to one unac-
quainted with the history of Gaelic literature be quite unintel-
ligible. But to one who is, these passages are old friends. The
" I " in the stanza quoted above refers to Oisin, the warrior poet,
reputed son of Finn and father of Oscar. And we now come
to the interesting and important fact that Oisin is supposed to
be personally relating these narratives, and, though the ballads
discussed above do not indicate it, he is supposed to be relating
them to St. Patrick. Further, he is supposed to be an old man,

10 J. G. Campbell, op. cit.

11 J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, III, 74 ff.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 251

living on hundreds of years after the occurrence of the events
he relates and lamenting his present state, as in the stanza last
quoted. This appearance of Oisin takes place in all the Fenian
poems in "Leabhar na Feinne," and, so far as I am aware, in
all Fenian poems of a popular nature anywhere.

This appearance of Oisin as a narrator has a vital bearing on
the question as to whether or not the Gaelic ballads are real
ballads. It might be asked, since anonymity is the first essential
of a ballad, how can poems which are related by a particular
person' at a particular time be called ballads? This
question can be answered at once by noting that Oisin,
"as a narrator in the poems discussed, is purely external
to the action. He is not a personality but an abstrac-
tion. This condition is easily shown. In the first "Lay
of Diarmuid ' ' quoted, the pronoun ' ' we " occurred but once, and
had no vital connection with the action. In the second version
the first personal pronoun occurred but twice, with equally little
relation to the action. In each case the pronoun might have been
''they" or "them" with, indeed, an improved effect on the logic
of the story. In the third version Oisin does not reveal his
presence at all except in a lament at the end, a kind of epilogue
which has no bearing whatever on the events of the poem. Oisin,
therefore, is in these poems clearly a figure-head.

The same conclusion may be drawn from the ' ' Lay of Oscar. ' '
Since Oisin was the reputed father of Oscar, his personality
might be supposed to enter here if anywhere. But such is not
the case. He is still nothing but a convention. The first stanza
is a kind of prelude, a lament like the concluding stanza in the
above ' ' Lay of Diarmuid. ' ' It begins as follows :

"I will not call my music my chief .effort

Though it would please Oisin tonight
For Oscar and Cairbre the Brave

Have fallen there in the battle of Gavra. "

Then the next stanza begins abruptly the action of the poem.
The concluding stanza is also a lament by Oisin, and is also
outside the action of th'e poem. In the body of the poem

252 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

proper "we" and "us" are used twenty-two times and "my"
once. The pronoun "I" is not used. Typical examples of the
former are: "Word came to us," stanza 2; "When we hap-
pened there, ' ' stanza 7 ; " We lifted with us the handsome Oscar, ' '
stanza 30 ;" We all blessed Finn, ' ' stanza 33 ; "It was the last
deed of my noble son, ' ' stanza 28. In the whole action the person
designated by "we" has no individuality and takes no distinctive
part in the events described. He is merely one of the crowd of
warriors. A striking proof of this abstraction of Oisin is found
in stanza 9. Here we find Oscar saying that the reason Cairbre
wishes to fight with him is that he, Oscar, is ' ' without the Fianna
or his father." In other words, though the Oisin of "we" is
present, the real Oisin is absent! It is therefore fairly clear, I
think, that the personality of the narrator does not affect the
ballad-like nature of these poems, or in any real sense their
anonymity.

But there are Gaelic popular poems represented in Camp-
bell 's collection in which the personality of Oisin is vital, and in
order to distinguish these poems, some idea as to how the con-
vention of Oisin and St. Patrick arose, and its relation to the
whole cycle of Fenian legends, is desirable. Kuno Meyer12 finds
the first mention of Finn in literature as far back as the seventh
century, A.D. There are scattered documents mentioning Finn
occurring up to the tenth century, when stories concerning him
become common. By the twelfth century the saga of Finn and
the Fianna had become- the dominating literary influence in
Ireland. The "Agalamh na Senorach," or "Colloquy of the
Old Men,"13 composed partly in the twelfth and partly in the
thirteenth centuries, from older materials, shows the Finn legend
in its most fully developed literary form. The earliest stories
of Finn did not contain the colloquies between Oisin or Caolte
and Patrick, but the later and more developed versions did. As
the legend grew, the convention of this dialogue, evidently a
purely literary one, was adopted. Two reasons for this change

12 Kuno Meyer, Fianaigecht (Todd Lecture Series, XVI), introduction,
is S. H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 253

may be suggested. In the first place, since literature and the
.schools in early Ireland were in very close connection with the
monasteries, the clothing of pagan tales with a Christian garment
would become desirable and likely. In the second place, since
the stories of Finn were scattered and fragmentary, some frame-
work to bind them together would be found necessary, and the
device of having one of the Fianna tell the stories to Patrick was
hit upon.

Up to the tenth century the aristocratic and homogeneous
cycle of Ulster had held sway on the literary stage, but about
that period interest in it seemed suddenly to die, and the Fenian
series of stories took its place. This change presents a curious
problem in any event, but especially for two reasons. First,
we note that the Ulster cycle has the largeness and the unity of
a national epic, whereas the cycle of Finn is a series of discon-
nected and independent episodes of little national appeal.
Second, the cycle of Ulster is dated by the Irish annalists of the
time at a period subsequent to that of the Fenian stories, so that
we see an apparently earlier set of events displacing a later one.
A discussion of this complicated question would take us too far
afield, but certain aspects of it must be mentioned as bearing
directly on . the question of the ancestry of the modern Gaelic
ballad.

Are these ballads descended from the literary types such as
the "Agalamh na Senorach," which contain the framework of
Oisin and Caolte in converse with Patrick, or are they descended
from older material on which these literary productions were
themselves based? I can but briefly summarize answers. Some
writers, notably W. L. Larminie,14 hold that the Finn cycle is
really older than the Ulster cycle, and that it existed among the
common people in the form of ballads and folk tales until the
overthrow of the power of Ulster in the tenth century, when a
popular reaction set in and these stories of Leinster and Munster
were promoted to a literary eminence. This theory is largely
based on the popular character of all the Finn stories, dealing as

i* W. L. Larminie, West Irish Folk-Tales, introduction.

254 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

they do with feats of strength and skill, personal encounters and
adventures with monsters and fairies. Indeed, at times they
remind us strongly of the Robin Hood stories. If this point of
view is true, it is likely that the modern ballads are
traceable directly to these ancient versions. If this is not
the case, we must say that all modern Gaelic ballads are derived
from the literary versions of the tenth to the fourteenth centuries,
and that any ballads existing before that time have disappeared.
There is, however, no reason to suppose that the Gaelic people did
not always possess ballads as they do now, and such a sudden
breaking-off in their continuity appears at least improbable. In
short, what appears to me to be the proper conclusion to be drawn
from all the facts is that the modern Gaelic Fenian ballads are
of popular origin, dating back to a period preceding the coming
of Christianity to Ireland, and that they were influenced to a
certain degree by the later literary forms existing side by side
with them from the tenth century onward. This influence is
shown in the device, gradually disappearing, of Oisin and Pat-
rick. Moreover, it would be just this conflict between the pagan
ideal and the Christian which would appeal to the popular imag-
ination. Oisin laments the lost delights of youth and strength
and love. Patrick emphasizes Christian piety and threatens
damnation. The structure of early Irish society in which bards,
strictly trained in literary forms, wandered throughout the coun-
try, would easily permit of the influence of the literature of the
schools being felt by the common people. Of all of the influences
derived in this way the device of the conflict between Patrick
and Oisin might well remain the longest. It might be added
that in some of the modern versions of these colloquies Oisin has
the best of the argument. It may then be said finally that in
such poems as the "Lay of Diarmuid" and the "Lay of Oscar"
we have ballads whose origin goes back beyond the mists of time,
with a trace of literary deposit still faintly discernible.

In regard to the poems of distinctly literary type appearing
in such collections as the "Leabhar na Feinne" only a word
need be said. They are not numerous and are well illustrated

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 255

by two versions of the "Battle of Gavra," both taken from the
oldest collection of Scotch-Gaelic poetry, that made by Sir James
McGregor, Dean of Lismore, about 1525. I have taken for de-
scription the longer version, a poem of fifty-eight stanzas. The
non-ballad character of this poem is at once apparent. In it
Oisin as a person takes a conspicuous part, and the references
to Patrick as a listener are numerous. The poem is largely in
the form of a lament by Oisin, and is more lyrical than narrative.
Finally, its style is rhetorical. The following quotation clearly
reveals all these characteristics. Oisin is speaking, describing
Oscar's death (Book of the Dean of Lismore, ed. by McLauchlan,
p. 39 and p. 25) :

I put down my spear point

And stood over him quiet as he was.
I thought, Oh tonsured priest,

Of what we should do after him.

Oscar turned towards me

And heavy to me was his affliction.
He stretched his hand to me.

Poems such as this show that real descendants of the literature
of the schools are current among the Gaels, and no doubt influ-
enced the art of poetry among them. The same may be said of
such poems as the so-called "Laments of Oisin," in which Oisin
and Patrick dispute.15 These laments are more simple than the
"Battle of Gavra" quoted above, but are in no sense ballads.

Up to this point my investigation has produced one important
result, namely, that there does exist in Scotch-Gaelic poetry a
large body of real ballads centering around the legends of Finn
and the Fianna. It has also shown that these ballads have been
influenced by the literature of the schools, chiefly in providing
a person, Oisin, as a narrator. And I have indicated the proba-
bility that these ballads are descended from older popular ver-
sions which existed before the legends of Finn had become food
for the literary schools of early Ireland.

Leabhar na Feinne, pp. 40 ff.

256 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

It now remains to give some brief account of the chief char-
acteristics of these Fenian ballads as represented in "Leabhar
na Feinne" and supplementary collections. These ballads fall
into nine well defined minor groups, with certain miscellaneous
isolated ballads in addition. First there are those dealing with
Finn himself. There are only two or three of these that can be
called real ballads, most of them being lyrics and dialogues. A
second group deals with the exploits of Caolte, the Swift-footed,
nephew of Finn. In "Leabhar na Feinne" there are seven of
these ballads, all genuine and spirited. A third and larger group
is composed of stories concerning the men of Lochlin, or the
Norsemen, and their encounters with the Fianna. These poems
are apparently very ancient in origin ; and contain numerous
mythological allusions. Though real narratives, their meaning
is sometimes obscure. A typical ballad of this nature is that of
' ' Muileartach, the Hag, ' ' which tells of a creature of supernatural
character who comes over the sea to aid the men of Lochlin.

The fourth group is concerned with Goll McMorna, the leader
of the Fianna, next to Finn in might and valor. He is repre-
sented as a noble and pathetic figure, finally betrayed to his
death by the treachery of Finn. He is apparently a favorite
character, and has thirteen ballads of varying qualities devoted
to him. The fifth group is that dealing with the death of Oscar
and the "Battle of Gavra" already mentioned. A number of
these, excellent ballads of the "Chevy Chase" type, are the
longest in any of the groups. Then we have a large sixth group
revolving around a character named Dearg, a Scotch chief, and
his son Conn, and their feud with the Fianna. A number of
these ballads are fragmentary.

The eighth and ninth groups are somewhat less closely knit
to the general framework of the saga than the others. The eighth
group, dealing with the love story and tragedy of Diarmuid and
Grainne, shows the highest achievement of pathos among Gaelic
ballads. Diarmuid is the Gaelic "Child Maurice," or "Little
Musgrave," and Grainne is the desolate sweetheart. This story

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 257

also is very old. It is mentioned in the Book of Leinster, 1075
A.D., an occurrence indicating a considerably older origin.

The ninth group consists of the ballads concerning "Eas
Ruadh, ' ' or the ' ' Lay of the Maiden, " as it is sometimes called.
This ballad story is one of the most charming, both in style and
content, of all Gaelic popular narratives. It is full of the super-
natural element and highly vivid. In the main it tells how a
maiden comes over the sea in a boat to Finn and his companions,
and how in pursuit comes a man on a wonderful horse, riding
over the waves. The sequel varies in different versions: some-
times the warrior is killed by Goll and the lady escapes; some-
times the lady is killed by the warrior before he is slain. This
ballad resembles closely certain English types. A description
of the lady and her gold and silver ornaments might well have
fitted ' ' Fair Janet, ' ' and the prancing steed of the warrior might
have belonged to any of the typical English ballad champions.
J. F. Campbell says that in 1870-71 he heard numerous versions
of this ballad still current in Gaelic Scotland.

Besides these nine distinct groups there are certain isolated
ballads dealing with the Fianna, of which I have counted thirty-
five, too large a number for separate mention here.

While by far the larger number of Gaelic popular narratives
fall under the Fenian cycle, as already described, there remains,
however, a small body of poetry which falls outside it. Some of
this poetry, indeed, shows signs of being absorbed into the over-
shadowing saga of Finn, just as the story of Arthur in the
medieval period drew to it independent narratives. These ex-
ternal groups fall under two heads. The first and larger com-
prises poems which are descendants of the old literary semi-epic
of Cuchullain of Ulster. The poems of this type extant in Gaelic
Scotland are difficult to characterize. They seem in many cases
to be ballads in the making, too consciously rhetorical to be folk
poetry, but still with many ballad features. These Cuchullain
poems fall into four divisions, with approximately twenty ver-
sions in "Leabhar na Feinne."

258 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

In the first division are contained poems descriptive of
Cuchullain's possessions, his chariot, etc. The language is highly
rhetorical, and none of the poems could be called a real ballad.
In the second division we get an account of Cuchullain's combat
with a warrior named "Garabh." It is here that Finn takes
the place of Cuchullain in several of the versions, showing the
assimilation to the Finn cycle. The language of these poems is
direct and the action vivid, but the style contains rhetorical
elements, e.g., adjectives strung together, which place these
poems at least on the border line of ballads. The third divi-
sion is made up of the stories of Cuchullain's slaying of his
son "Conlaoch," the "Sohrab and Rustum" motive of Gaelic
legend. These, like the previous group, seem ballads in the
making, direct and vivid with frequent repetend,10 but with
numerous rhetorical passages17 which indicate their literary
origin. The fourth division is made up of the story of the
"Heads," as it is called, in which the hero "Conall Cernach"
tells ' ' Emer, ' ' the wife of Cuchullain, of the number of heads he
has taken in revenge for Cuchullain's death. These are real
ballads, as genuine as any in Gaelic, the whole method, indeed,
that of question and answer, being essentially ballad-like. In
this ballad, at the end, Emer says that vengeance can do her no
good, and she asks Conall to lay her in the same grave with
Cuchullain.

The fifth group is concerned with the celebrated old tale of
"Deirdre." There are five of these poems in "Leabhar na
Feinne," all of them being lyrical laments, and they cannot be
called ballads, either in style or content. They are obviously
popular versions of the older Irish ' ' Laments of Deirdre, ' ' which
are a conspicuous feature of the prose romances dealing with
the story of the sons of "Usnach,"18 but with evident remains
of a literary style and method. These poems present an interest-
ing study to the student of folk literature. The tale of ' ' Deirdre ' '

is Cf. Leabhar na Feinne, stanzas 80-81, p. 12, and stanzas 102-106,
p. 13.

IT Cf. idem., stanzas 61, 78 and 79, p. 12.
is Cf . Irische Texte, II, pt. 2, 109 ff.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 259

is still to be heard all over the highlands, in prose as well as in
verse, and is of great popularity.19 In it we observe almost
certainly a literary production having taken firm root among the
people and having been handed down through generations by
narrators who could neither read nor write, and in such form that
its literary origin is still plainly discernible.

There remains now a Gaelic popular poem which is almost
independent in its status, "The Lay of Fraoch." It touches the
Cuchullain saga at one point only, in the presence of Queen
Meave as a character. The plot is as follows: Fraoch loves the
daughter of Queen Meave, but Meave becomes jealous. She tells
Fraoch that he must swim across a lake, in which there is a
monster, to bring her a handful of rowan berries which grow on
the other side. This command Fraoch carries out, eluding the
monster. But Meave, not content, sends him back again. On
this second journey the monster mortally wounds Fraoch.
Meave 's daughter reaches the shore in time to give Fraoch a
knife with which to kill the monster, but only to see him die
after this last act. This poem is remarkably fine, but it is not a
real ballad, being couched in the language of conscious art, and
is, without much doubt descended from the well-known Old Irish
tale of ' ' Fraoch. " It is reminiscent in style of the ' ' Old French
Lais." For example, the poem opens thus: "It is the sigh of a
friend from the grave of Fraoch, It is the sigh of a warrior from
his bier"; and it ends thus: "A pity, Oh God, that he does not
still live. A sigh." With this "Lay of Fraoch" properly ends
my outline of Scotch-Gaelic ballads.

There are many interesting problems connected with these
Gaelic poems about which volumes could be written. In con-
clusion to my whole investigation I will emphasize a few of their
more general aspects. First, it is a noteworthy characteristic
that Gaelic ballads are confined to two general cycles of narrative,
as already noted, the Fenian and the Cuchullain. This situation
in the Gaelic ballad-world would possess an analogy in English
if nearly all the English ballads were centered around the Robin
i» Cf. J. G. Campbell, Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, IV, 8.

260 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Hood stories — containing minor groups centering around the
various characters such as Friar Tuck and Little John — and if
all the rest of the English ballads were descended from the
romances of Sir Gawain.

A second outstanding feature of the Gaelic ballads is the
possession of a personal narrator, with its unsolved problem of
whether the ballads are all descended from the Irish literary
romances or whether they are derived from older and genuine
ballads. A third pronounced feature of Gaelic popular poetry
is the presence of poems of clearly literary character in both
cycles, descended from known literary ancestors and existing side
by side with the genuine ballads.

An interesting problem connected with these ballads is that
of their introductions and conclusions. A portion of the ballads
have no introduction, but begin the action immediately, as the
''Ballad of the Heads"20 or "Death of Goll,"21 but the larger
proportion have an introduction usually of from two to four
stanzas, often longer, and often a conclusion corresponding.
These introductions are usually distinct from the story and often
inconsistent with it, and seem a kind of conventional appendage,
a relic of the Ossianic framework tacked on as it were.

These introductions may be divided into two classes. The
first comprises those in which the personality of Oisin, the nar-
rator, is evident and in which Patrick is definitely present as the
listener. This is the device of the old literary forms and survives
in many variations in the modern ballads. The ' ' Duan na Hing-
hinn"22 gives a good illustration of one sort. It runs thus, in
three stanzas:

' ' Oh, noble Oisin, son of Finn,

You who are sitting on the hillock sweet,

Oh, great warrior, champion not feeble,
I see sadness on your countenance."

20 Leabhar na Fcinne, p. 16.

21 Leabhar na Feinne, p. 169.

22 Leabhar na Feinne, p. 136.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 261

Oisin replies:

"I will tell you the cause of my grief,

Oh, Patrick, if you wish to listen,
My remembrance is on the Fians of the Feinne,

Who were on the hillock once.

"On this hillock we were together,

Oh holy Patrick of the free birth,
I saw then the household of Finn,

And they joyous, great, courageous, fair."

After this the narrative begins ' ' On this hillock were the Fianna
one day, when," etc. Here the introduction leads directly from
a recognition of the locality by Oisin to his telling a story. This
direct connection is rare, however, a more usual method being
that of Oisin speaking to Patrick and saying something that
leads to a narrative, often a kind -of dispute as in the ' ' Lay of
Manus. "23 It begins, " Cleric, who chantest the psalms, I am
sure your judgment is not sound; why should you not listen
for a short time to a tale about the Fianna which you have never
heard before?" In the three stanzas that follow, Patrick says
psalms are better to hear, but finally agrees to listen to Oisin.
The narrative begins in the fourth stanza and is in the ballad
manner throughout. Here the introduction could serve
for any narrative. In other poems, more numerous still,
exists the kind of introduction where the part Patrick
prays has faded and Oisin speaks in a kind of prelude
of lamentation. This species of introduction is usually
of one or two stanzas, and is illustrated by the "Lay of
Oscar,"24 where the introduction consists of the following single
stanza :

"I will not style my strain, my Prince,
How sad is Oisin tonight;

Oscar and the Cairbre stalwart,
Ebb away in strife of corpses. ' '

The second general group shows us an evolution which has
caused the personality of Oisin to fade away entirely. In this

23 J. G. Campbell, Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, IV, 106 ff.
2* Popular Tales of the West Highlands, III, 322 ff.

262 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

class, which is the most numerous of all, some one speaks, using
the pronoun I, but we only infer from analogy that it is Oisin,
for he is not named, nor is Patrick. Thus of the two introduc-
tory stanzas of the ' ' Lay of Diarmuid ' '25 the first is :

Listen a little if you wish a lay,

Of the tribe that has gone from us,

Of MacCumbal and of the Fianna,

And of the prince whose tale is sad.

In the second is mentioned the prince who went to hunt a boar.
The narrative begins abruptly in the third stanza. Here the
personality of Oisin has changed to a sort of lyrical prelude
uttered by some person who may be taken as any reciter. A
frequent and seemingly stereotyped introduction is a one-stanza
form beginning,26 "I have a little tale of Finn if you wish to
listen that much." This group reminds us strongly of many
of the introductions of the English ballads, as King John and the
Bishop,27 "Off an ancient story I'll tell you anon, Of a notable
prince that was called King John " ; or Lord Delamere,28 ' ' Good
people give attention, a story you shall hear, It is of the king and
my lord Delamere " ; or the Robin Hood ballads in general.

These introductions, whether more or less impersonal, seem
clearly derived from the same literary convention that employed
Oisin as the story-teller. They are often crystallized in re-
current phrases which have been preserved verbatim by the pop-
ular narrators, e.g., "I am sad after the Fianna," "my king,"
referring to Finn, and ' ' my son Oscar, ' ' etc. Besides these intro-
ductions some of the ballads have other curious intrusions, as in
the ballad of Garabh. We are told how the hero took vengeance
on the wives of the Fianna for an insult they had put upon him,
burning them in their house. This otherwise very good ballad
has an introduction occupying eleven stanzas out of a total of
thirty-eight. The first three stanzas are of the ordinary color-

as Popular Tales of the West Highlands, III, 74 ff .

26 Cf. Leabhar na Feinne, ' ' Oath Eigh Sorcha, ' ' p. 133.

27 Child 45.

28 Child 207.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Baflads 263

less type, saying that one day the Fenians came to their house
in "Innis Fail," and describing their fine house. Then the
next eight stanzas are given up to a catalogue of what was in
the house, 100 knives, 100 cups, etc., and suddenly in the twelfth
stanza the story begins. In a parallel version in Le-dbJiar na
Feinne this introduction is entirely wanting, the poem beginning
apparently at the point where this catalogue breaks off. There
are a number of such apparent abnormal growths scattered
throughout the ballads.

The question of these introductions is an intricate and difficult
one, especially as to their verbatim resemblances, their inter-
change from one ballad to another without regard to meaning,
and their total disappearance in parallel versions. It is cer-
tainly a case of a gradual fading of literary influence, where
certain forms are preserved, perhaps by the pride of the popular
story-teller who seems to desire to prove his story the product
of a famous national warrior bard, and therefore inserts a con-
ventional reference to Oisin, or a crystallized formula.

I may here point out that I have nowhere mentioned Irish
Gaelic ballads. The reason for this omission is simple — I have
nowhere been able to discover any. That is to say, I have dis-
covered no Irish popular poem that measures up to the criteria
used for distinguishing English ballads. It is true that there
is a profusion of poems dealing with the Finn and the Cuchul-
lain cycles, both ancient and modern, but these are all of the
literary type. The real popular ballad appears to be absent.
Of the Fenian cycle we have poems in Irish Gaelic from the
seventh to the nineteenth centuries, but they all bear the impress
of conscious art. I mention the most noteworthy collections of
these poems: ' ' Fianaigecht, " by Kuno Meyer, a collection of
the most ancient Fenian poems; "Duanaire Finn," a collection
completed in 1626 in language indicating a sixteenth century
origin; Miss Brooks' collection of Irish popular poetry, pub-
lished in 1789 ; the publications of the Ossianic Society of Dublin,
1853-55, which contain Fenion poetry of all dates. In all of

234 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

these collections I have been unable to detect a single real ballad.
Why ballads should have lingered to this day in the highlands
and islands of Scotland, and have disappeared apparently cen-
turies ago in neighboring Ireland, is a question no one, I imagine,
can answer satisfactorily. Did the poetry of the bardic schools,
carried among the people by the wandering poets, supplant the
native folk product more thoroughly in Ireland than in Scotland ?
This is possible, but then why do we find among the Irish such
a wealth of tales in prose of the most genuine folk character?29
And why do we find also genuine popular lyrics of great variety ?30
These are questions which I shall not attempt to solve.

To illustrate what I mean by the literary character of the
Irish Fenian poems as distinguished from the ballad type of
Scotland, I will quote a stanza from a poem dealing with the
story of Diarmuid, taken from "Duanaire Finn."31 This poem
consists of eighteen stanzas, and tells how Diarmuid was treach-
erously slain by Finn, and how Diarmuid 's daughter unsuccess-
fully sought vengeance. In the original the words of the stanza
are carefully and elaborately alliterated. The translation is as
follows :

Finn, the Prince of the Fians, answers unto the nimble, furious fray ;
Rent was his battle gear by the music of her round spears.

The contrast in style between this passage and that of the ' ' Lay
of Diarmuid ' ' quoted at the beginning of this essay, is sufficiently
obvious, and this passage is typical of Irish narrative style
throughout its history.

The native Gaelic ballad must therefore be sought in the
collections, past and present, of poems taken from the lips of the
people of Gaelic Scotland. What we have obtained from them
constitutes a remarkably fine body of ballad poetry, and one
worthy of the imaginative race from which it springs.

29 Cf. Douglas Hyde, Beside the Fire, and W. L. Larminie, West Irish
Folk Tales.

so Cf. Douglas Hyde, Love Songs of Connacht.
si Irish Text Society, VII, 46, 150.

1922] Lyman: An Essay on Gaelic Ballads 265

The ballad poetry of the Gaels offers a number of general
comparisons and contrasts with English ballad poetry of consid-
erable interest. Thus we find that the Gaelic ballads are longer,
as a rule, than their English sisters, thirty-five stanzas being a
fair average. Perhaps this greater length is due to their con-
taining lyrical outbursts, usually of lament, which are much more
emphasized than in the English type. It may be that this char-
acteristic of the Gaelic ballads is an expression of the more lively
and intense emotion of the Celt.

Then we notice that the Gaelic ballads are devoted largely
to incidents of combat, the love element entering only to a minor
degree. It is the "Chevy Chase" type that is dominant among
them. And since the protagonists are kings and chiefs, the
epithet ' ' heroic, ' ' often applied to these ballads, seems not inap-
propriate. Such love incidents as do appear, like the elopement
of Diarmuid and Grainne, and the attempt of the king of Lochlin
to carry off the wife of Finn, lead to combat as a final result.
This prevalence of the martial note in Gaelic ballads produces
two points of difference from the English type : first, the ab-
sence of the romantic atmosphere, so characteristic of English
ballads, and, second, the occurrence of an almost universal, tragic
outcome.

Thirdly, we observe that the supernatural element is very
prominent among the Gaelic ballads, far. more so than among
the English. Nearly every version has some magic person or
property in it. And the fairy people play an important part.
These personages, as for example the maiden who comes over
the sea, in the ballad of "Eas Ruadh," are the Celtic fairies of
the "Tuatha De Danaan" type, which appear also in the old
French "Lais." While this supernatural element gives a dis-
tinctively imaginative cast to the Gaelic ballads, it also goes to
show that they represent an older and more primitive state of
culture than do the English ballads.

Finally, in the matter of style we find that among Gaelic
ballads the use of recurrent conventional phrases like "bright

236 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

of blee " or " gared cauld iron gae, ' ' is less prevalent than among
the English ballads. While the Gaelic ballads possess many epi-
thets, they are neither so numerous nor so consistently employed
as they are among the English ballads. Then, too, the genuine
refrain is lacking in the Gaelic ballads, its place being taken by the
conventional Ossianic phrases and introductions and conclusions.
But in essentials, in simplicity, vigor, dramatic force, and
folk quality, the Gaelic ballads are at one with their English
relatives. And when all is said we possess in the Gaelic ballads
a truly delightful product of popular imagination. For vivid-
ness of color, intensity of feeling, and directness of utterance
the Gaelic ballads give us a body of poetry of its kind unexcelled.

A METHOD OF STUDYING THE

STRUCTURE OF PRIMITIVE VERSE

APPLIED TO THE SONGS OF THE

TETON-SIOUX

GUY MONTGOMERY

A METHOD OF STUDYING THE STRUCTURE
OF PRIMITIVE VERSE APPLIED TO
THE SONGS OF THE TETON-
SIOUX

GUY MONTGOMEEY

In this paper I desire to offer a series of suggestions to any
one who may be interested in the rhythmical structure of so-
called primitive verse. These suggestions are based upon an
analysis of a number of representative American Indian songs
in the excellent collection made by Miss Frances Densmore dur-
ing a period of more than ten years, and published by the Bureau
of American Ethnology as Bulletin 61.1 Miss Densmore 's in-
terest is primarily in the music of the Indian, but her material
may prove valuable to the student of the beginnings of song in
aspects that lie without the field of melody. The American
Indian never conceived his song without the music; in fact, he
caught at an agreeable melody, hummed it, fixed it in his mind,
and then proceeded to select his words.2 The fact that he almost
invariably found it necessary to join words and melody in order
to complete his expression makes our study possible.3 These
words have meaning, perhaps obscure, buried in a myth, legend,
or long forgotten custom of devout ancestor, but for the Indian
charged with significance. The words, then, which are the inter-
pretation of his affective experience, whether profound, origi-
nating in the very tissue of the tribal life, or trivial, rising from
the momentary excitement of a dance of victory, are worthy the
serious attention of the student of literature.

1 "Chippewa Music," Bur. Am. Ethn., Bull. 61. The volume from which
this study is made contains six hundred songs, notated and analyzed.

2 Burton, F. E., American Primitive Music (New York, 1909), p. 173.

a Exceptions to this practice are to be noted in the case of the compo-
sition of some love melodies, in which the composer, fearful of the outcome
of his wooing, dared not express his passion in words.

270 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 13

The content of the song, however, is one thing ; the structure,
another. The story of the content is long and would lead one
far beyond the Indian's memory; the discussion of the form is
perhaps quite as long, but the phonograph has made that dis-
cussion possible to a degree of certainty that at least encourages
investigation if it does not quite satisfy one's desire for scien-
tific completeness. It is with the structure that I am to deal.
Can it be shown that the songs of these peoples possess peculiar
and definite rhythmical features? If so, what are they? Is
there evidence that the songs of the so-called simpler peoples
follow a distinct metrical pattern or exhibit a definite metrical
habit ? If so, would it be possible to build up a system of prim-
itive prosody? These and related questions escape one at the
very beginning; and when one reads over and over again the
Song of the White Buffalo Maiden,

taninyan mawdni ye
Niyd taninyaw mawani ye e e
Oydte le imdwani na ho ho
H6taninyan mawani ye ye ye
ye a ye a ye

one thrills at the swing and resolves to pursue the elusive rhythm
to the very tepee of the chief.

Of course, rhythm is rhythm wherever one finds it, and merely
to be thrilled at the appearance of a tantalizing movement in the
song of an American Indian whose drum throbbed from morning
till night during the ceremonials and the feasts, whose feet kept
time to the point of exhaustion, and whose shrill falsetto charged
the steady pulse-beat of the drum and lost itself in the vastness
of the prairie, is to miss the point. That there is rhythm every-
where does not tell us what it is; that there is rhythm in an
Indian's song — what could be more natural? — does not tell us
what are its features. It is to the task of examining these fea-
tures that I turn.

What are the first steps in the search for a method by which
a study of Indian verse may begin? Let me suggest that (1)
transcription in terms of modern musical convention will stand

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the TetoH-Sloux 271

in the way of our progress;* (2) however honestly we heed this
caution, we need not let the melodic structure hinder us. The
tonal quality of the songs may be represented with as much
fidelity to the Indian's method of performance as conventional
devices can show it. These after all only approximate the In-
dian's manner of rendering his music. Miss Densmore herself
has given us a suggestion : she has very carefully arranged a list
of typical "rhythmic units," which she defines as "a group of
tones of various lengths, usually comprising more than one count
of a measure, occurring more than twice in a song, and having
an evident influence on the rhythm of the entire song."5 For
example, the musical transcription of the song quoted above
reveals the following group of tones, occurring five times and
at each appearance pitched lower in the scale :6

The hint that Miss Densmore has given us is at once obvious :
look for groups of tones that show similar time relations among
themselves. (3) I suggest further that we may, without de-
stroying the melodic structure of a song, make use of the musical

4 For the student who would apprehend the tonal qualities and melodic
structure of Indian song, the signature, the division into measures, the
indication of time, no doubt, would be of value. But with these helps
such a student might be tempted to read into the song something far
from the Indian 's mind. He should be warned against the danger of
misapprehending the orchestric devices of modern notation. Myers' well
chosen advice is worth remembering: "It is easy to see how a regard
for regular rhythm, harmony, and tonality, and the principle of equal
temperament are responsible for the attitude of European civilization to-
wards music generally. No sooner do we hear a piece of primitive or
advanced music than we endeavor to interpret it in terms with which
custom has long familiarized us. Absolutely without reflection we read
into the music regular accents, we arrange it in bars, we declare it to be
in such and such a key, and to be in the major or minor scale, we identify
its intervals with those of our own to which they most nearly correspond.
We forget that the complexities of rhythm may far exceed what we are
accustomed to, and that primitive music knows little of tonality, and
nothing of major or minor scale." ("The Ethnological Study of Music,"
Taylor Anthropological Essays [Oxford, 1907], p. 248). Professor Myers
might have added that, since the marking of time intervals, too, is only
our way of holding a group of performers to the same scheme, the setting
of the Indian song off into measures is falsifying it except to those who
are looking for thematic material.

B Densmore, op. cit., 37.

e A complete list is given by Miss Densmore, op. ait., pp. 528-529.

272 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

convention in so far as it helps us to apprehend the relative
time- value of the tones or syllables of the song.7 (4) Finally, we
shall eliminate the drum-beat from our analysis of the rhythm
of Teton-Sioux songs. To some students this procedure may
appear to strike out the rhythmic element whose presence justifies
our study. Let us see. "We know that the drum-beat governs
the character of the dance; we know, too, that the drum-beat,
frequently at variance with the voice so far as time is concerned,
produces the syncopation that is characteristic of Indian music ;8
and we know that the drum-beat is single, double, or triple.9 Now
this knowledge is important when the Indian song as a whole is
studied, but to eliminate from the present study the disturbing
tattoo of the drum is to simplify the method of investigation.10
For us here the song is a group of words signifying something ;
in order to understand the Indian 's composition, we are justified
in utilizing all that we can of the reporter's material and in
rejecting for the present that which clutters our table and lies
in the way of accomplishing one task at a time.

When we carry out the four points suggested above, what
shall we have to study ? A song transcribed in this manner :

SONG OF THE WHITE BUFFALO MAIDEN

fl. h g f. — ,

1 M t i

» — ,

. — ,

» 1

» ... u, P^~V 1

^=q

/ b ¥ * =

q»bb a. r E '

£ —

? — 6 — '

$ —

Etc.

7 I am constrained to suggest, however, that these groups would have
been better named "melodic units," or "motifs," or "themes."

s Interesting figures in this regard are given by Densmore, op. cit.. p. 39.

9 Fillmore, J. C., Peabody Museum Papers, vol. 1, p. 67.

10 The complexities of a graphic method of representing the drum-beat
at variance with the voice would make a study by itself, the benefits of
which as a supplement to the present paper could not be too highly .held.

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the Tetofi- Sioux

\ f ^ f * f * f f*^— *-. * 9-

—fr—>; V $

— P — f— *-

=^F

273

r r r

Etc.

Eeleased from the conventional transcription showing the
change of time/1 we find ourselves freer to proceed to the ob-
servation of the actual verse structure of the song. But it seems
advisable to take the words still farther away from the notation,
in order that we may conceive the song in terms more nearly
related to the rules of versification. ' May I not, therefore, adopt
a series of arbitrary symbols12 to represent approximately the
time-value of the syllables of the song?

The song would appear in the following form :

Niya taninyan mawani ye niya taninyan mawani ye e e oyate le imawani na

ho ho hotaninyan mawani ye ye ye ye aye a ye niya taninyan mawani ye e e

• _••_•_•_____ / // •____//_//_

walute le imawani na ho ho hotaninyan mawani ye ye ye ye aye a ye

11 I would not have it understood that I ignore without qualification
the division into measures and the representation of the change of time.
In playing the phonographic record to the metronome, Miss Densmore
found that the first measure of the foregoing song occupied two beats,
whereas the second measure extended itself to three. The drum-beat is
not recorded; hence we are not certain of where the drum and voice
accents are coincident. In many songs, a few of which will be analyzed
hereafter, the drum is in the same time as the voice. If the drum-rhythm

is to be represented as J j j j J j we should expect to find

two of these groups in a 2/4 measure and three of them in a measure of 3/4
time. There is nothing to indicate that the rhythm changes; we know only
that more time is consumed in a 3/4 than in a 2/4 measure. Thus I believe
that we are justified in transcribing a song so as to represent the relative
time value of the syllables. If one were to harmonize and orchestrate the
song for a group of performers, one would of necessity be bound more
rigidly by the conventions. The conventions, it must be remembered, are
for the convenience of performers, who, in order to play together, agree
to the same rules.

12 Since these are arbitrary symbols, the representation of the relative
time values will not always be exact. For example, a dotted eighth (5)
may be represented by the symbol I have chosen for the quarter note (°).
This procedure is permissible, I think, in the interest of simplicity.

274 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11
and represented by the symbols alone, it would appear as

When the song has been reduced to this form, the rhythmical
structure, which was formerly apparent only to the ear, becomes
visible.13

Niya taninyan mawani ye
Niya taninyan mawani ye

e e
Oyate le imawani na

ho ho
H6taninyan mawani ye

ye ye
ye a ye a ye
Niya taninyan mawani ye

e e
Waliita le imawani na

ho ho
H6taninyan mawani ye

ye ye
ye a ye a ye1*

is I say ' ' visible ' ' for a comparison of our ' ' rhythmic pattern ' ' with
Miss Densmore 's ' ' rhythmic unit ' ' reveals a difference. For example,
she allows only one unit to the song, which may be represented in our
terms as — " ' ' " ' ' —

I should say that there were three "units" unless that which I name as
the third is to be considered a variation of the first. These are:

(1),, _/,/////_ (2) "_»_»_» (3) _""""_

i* This song, I now hasten to explain, is known as the song of the
White Buffalo Maiden. It is said to have been sung by the maiden for
whom it was named as she entered the camp on her mission of peace to
the Teton-Sioux. It was she who brought the pipe to this group of Indians
and who instituted certain ceremonial customs among them. For a com-
plete account of the song see Miss Densmore 's "Teton-Sioux Music,"
Bur. Am. Ethn., Bulletin 61, pp. 63-68. I add Miss Densmore 's translation:

With visible breath I am walking
With visible breath I am walking
This nation I walk toward and
My voice is heard, I am walking

With "visible breath I am walking
This scarlet relic I walk for and
My voice is heard. I am walking

The "visible breath" is that of the buffalo, which can be seen rising on
frosty mornings. The "scarlet relic" is a "scarlet-wrapped packet in

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the Teton-Sioux 275

We now have a convenient method by which to analyze the
structure of our verse, without interfering with the essential
musical features. Let us apply this method to an examination
of four songs in order to determine if possible (1) peculiarities
of line, or verse, structure, and (2) characteristics of line, or
verse, grouping.

A BUFFALO SAID TO MEis

Wahfnawapin kte wanmayanka yo "-"-"-"- " " -

He yo --

Wahfnawapin kte wanmayanka yo "-"-"-"- " " -

He yo — -

Wahfnawapin kte wanmayanka yo "-"-"-"- " " -

He yo ~~ ~

Tatanka wan hemakiya //_//_// o //_

He yo — ~

Wahfnawapin kte wanmayanka yo "-"-"-

He yo

the lodge of those who are keeping a spirit." The following translation
is given in order to suggest the significance of the song and to retain the
metrical character:

I come bearing tidings of peace, arise !
I come bearing tidings of peace, arise!
This nation strong I come to save, ho!
Hark to my words, I approach you,

Rise ! Eise !

Hark you! Hark you! Hark!
I come bearing tidings of joy, arise
This relic sacred I will bless, ho!
Hark to my words, I approach you,

Rise and receive
Hark you! Bless (Hark) you! Hark!

is This song is said by Brave Buffalo to have come to him in a dream
in which he was chosen to represent the buffaloes in life. The translation
given by Miss Densmore (op. cit., p. 174) is:

I will appear, behold me,
I will appear, behold me,
I will appear, behold me;
A buffalo said to me
I will appear, behold me.

276 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

MY HOESEie

Mitas'unke kinyan ye wdyelo " ~ " — " - °

he —

Pe£uta wan koyag waki yelo" kmyan ye waye " - " - " — "
he —

Mit&s'unke kinyan ye w&yelo " ~ " — " ~ °

SOMETHING SACRED I WEAR"

He taku wakan komanya kel<5 sit6mniyan wanmayanka auwe

he o

Tdku wakan komanya ke!6 sit6mniyan wanmdyanka auwe
Sit.6mniyan wanmayanka aiiwe

he o

CangleSka wan komanya ke!6 sit6mniyan warmayanka auwe
Sit6mniyan wanmayanka auwe
a he a he

_ It — II II It _ O O _ II _ // If If If _

H _ it it a o _

is Densmore, op. oit., p. 216. This song was used when a horse was to
be painted for the battle. The translation given by the reporter follows:

My horse flying along, I have caused

he
A medicine to wear, I caused my own flying along

he
My horse flying along, I have caused.

17 Densmore, op. oit,, p. 295. This song belongs to those who were
members of the "Elk Society," that is, "the men who had dreamed of the
elk ' ' during periods of fasting, and who on that account had banded them-
selves together to form a secret organization. The hoop carried by an elk
dreamer is mentioned in the song as "a, rainbow." The following was
given as an explanation of the use of this term: "Part of the rainbow
is visible in the clouds, and part disappears in the ground. What we see
is in the shape of a hoop. The word is employed by medicine men and
especially by dreamers of the elements of the air and the earth. ' ' Miss
Densmore 's translation follows:

Something sacred wears me, all behold me coming

he o

Something sacred wears me, all behold me coming
All behold me coming

he o

A hoop [rainbow] wears me, all behold me coming
All behold me coming
a he a he

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the Teton-Sioux 277

An examination of these songs, which I have ventured to
call representative, reveals certain definite characteristics: (a)
There appears, at least to the eye, a variety of rhythmic groups
that we may call "phrases";18 (&) within the phrases them-
selves there are various smaller units. These units, however,
do not show the regularity either of form or of recurrence that
is apparent in the larger groups. For example, in "My Horse"
the first line,

» _ » ^ » _ o o _ »

may be broken up as

_ o o _

but without reason.19 In the song "Something I Wear" there
is a similar variety of line units :

(a) -•-•*'•

/IN O W _ // V W O _ O O _

(c)

To select, except arbitrarily, smaller units is hardly possible.20
These observations seem significant, for in them lies a sign
of that for which we have been searching, namely, a metrical
habit. Whether the Indian has developed rhythm to a greater
degree than his pale cousin21 or whether he is still far behind
civilized races in his music22 is not the immediate problem: we

is These are determined by the sense as well as by the position of
vocables by which the performer marks the end of a thought group.

19 First of all, before we can be certain of the accentuation, we should
know where the drum-beat occurred; only this could give us a basis for
division. Moreover, if we attempt to divide according to the musical
measure, we shall be committing the error which we charge to the musician.

20 This does not take account of the regularities that one finds in the
other two songs. ^Regularity is to be expected; where one should look for
it is another matter. I had thought that the strictly choral songs would
show a regularity not found in solos. I was not justified, I believe, for
though choral songs show perhaps more balance and parallelism, yet sim-
plicity of rhythmical structure is not necessarily a characteristic that
distinguishes it from the solo. Here is a legitimate problem.

21 Cf . Fillmore, J. C., ' ' Structural Penculiarities of Omaha Music, ' '
Peabody Museum, Papers, vol. 1, p. 68. "Bhythm is by far the most
elaborately developed element of Indian music, and in this respect civil-
ized music has not surpassed it, at least in the point of combining dis-
similar rhythms. ' '

22 Cf. Barton, F. B., op. oit., p. 6L "When I began to study Indian
music seriously, I did so with the conviction I learned from the writings
of others, that the Indian had developed rhythm more highly than had
the white man. I have come exactly to the opposite conclusion. . . . '

278 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

are concerned with an hypothesis of a different order. May we
not say for the present that the Indian conceives his rhythm in
larger and more complex patterns than we do ? The characteristic
"phrasing" of the songs, the inner complexities of these phrases,
and their recurrence seem to point to the soundness of this as-
sumption. The necessity put upon field investigators of Indian
music of representing the peculiar rhythm in frequent change
of measure seems to add to the strength of the hypothesis.23 If
we can still hold the position after we have put all our songs to
the test, are we not ready to "place" this phenomenon of prim-
itive rhythm perception in its proper relation to the development
of verse rhythm in general ?24

"When we proceed to the second part of our task, namely,
the investigation of line, or verse, grouping, we encounter equally
interesting peculiarities.25

23 Fillmore, J. C., op. cit., p. 67. ' ' One of the most noticeable rhythmic
peculiarities of these songs [Omaha] is the grouping of pulses into mea-
sures of different lengths. Some of them group their pulses in twos or in
threes throughout. But many of them have groups of an unequal number

of beats One of the most striking peculiarities of rhythm is the

mixture of twos and threes in the same measure "

Miss Densmore asserts that of 298 Chippewa songs 95 per cent change
measure lengths, and of 240 Sioux songs 84 per cent show the same pecu-
liarity (op. cit., p. 36).

24 After all, we have been seeking a method of study. If we have
succeeded in throwing any light upon the rhythmical characteristics of
Indian songs, we have opened a way for a systematic study of all primitive
poetry. For, in general, we may assume that what is true of the rhythm
of American Indian song holds good for that of the song of other primitive
peoples.

Cf . Myers, C. S., "A Study of Ehythm in Primitive Music, ' ' Brit . Jour.
Psych., I (1904-1905), 405. Professor Myers, whose interest carried him
among the savage tribes of Borneo, writes: "The rhythmical character-
istics of the examples of primitive music which we have studied are three
in number: a delight in change and in opposition of rhythm, and a demand
that relatively long periods filled with measures of diverse lengths be appre-
hended as an organic whole or ' phrase. ' To such an extreme have we found
these features occasionally to be carried that their aesthetic effects may be
neither appreciated nor reproducible by more advanced peoples. ' ' Professor
Myers has drawn well not only from his own experience but also from the
observations of notable authorities who have reported similar phenomena
of primitive rhythm from widely separated regions of the globe.

25 It is not possible within the space at my disposal to transcribe more
than a few of the two hundred specimens compiled by Miss Densmore. I
have selected from the oldest (100 to 50 years) in her collection fair rep-
resentatives of the six classes she names: Ceremonial Songs, Dream Songs,
Sacred Stone Songs, Medicine Songs, Society Songs, War Songs. The ex-
amples analyzed are ceremonial songs. The notes contain reference to
specimens that are similar in structure.

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the Tetan-Sioux 279

I have been able to make out the following fairly well differ-
entiated classes so far as structure is concerned :26

1. Songs in which pattern is not discernible. To illustrate :

Kold pila bliheiciya po -o_o_o»__

He lei bnkupi kin ° - - °

wanonyanka pel 6 - ° ° — °

Friends, take courage;
Eight here we are coming;
They see us.27

2. Songs in which a pattern is discernible in the repetition of
a line.-

A WIND28

He akfcita da wamic'onzelo, »/_oo_oooo —

He akidita ca wamfconzelo, » - o 0 _ o o oo__

Tat6 wan komayakelo, ° - ° < ° - °
Wanyanki ye! O

Wakan ye!629 ° ° °

It was a guard predicted for me
It was a guard predicted for me
A wind wears me
Behold it! O!
Sacred it is.

2« It is well to say (1) that my descriptions are based upon principal,
or distinguishing, features of the songs; the songs of one group will have
certain characteristics of those of another; and (2) that these categories
may, on further study, be increased. The classification here presented is
meant to be suggestive. I may add that I have not taken account of the
half-line repetition which is characteristic of many of the songs. We
might treat songs of this sort as a class by itself; it seems advisable to
consider such songs as variables of the larger classes and to omit discussion
of them here.

27 Densmore, op. cit., p. 105. This is described as a "Chief Song,"
commonly used at the dances preceding a Sun Dance. Numbers 8, 80, 128,
235, 142 show similar characteristics.

28 Densmore, op. cit., p. 168. This is a song performed in the "cere-
mony called Heyoka Kaga, a ceremony of public humiliation, ' ' enacted
chiefly by those who have dreamed of thunder birds. The editor explains
that "from the time of a dream until the time when the dreamer has
fulfilled its requirements he regards himself as belonging to the elements
and under an obligation of obedience to them. A medicine man may wear
the head of a bird as a sign of his power, indicating that bird to be subject
to his commands. So in this song, the elements are said to be 'wearing'
the singer, who has not yet fulfilled his obligations to them. ' ' The song
was rendered four times. In the second rendition the word "wind'' was
replaced by "hail," in the third by "lightning," and in the fourth by
"clouds." This feature brings the song under one of our later classifi-
cationsL I have used it here because it well illustrates the characteristic
beginning of a simple parallelism and the failure to complete it in a
balanced pattern.

20 It is worth noting that there is a definite tendency toward rhyme,
discussion of which AVC must omit.

280 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [VoL 11

3. Songs in which a pattern is characterized by repetition of
whole lines separated from one another by new material:

SONG OF PAINTING THE SACRED POLEso

At6 lend, tdwa makfye °

Ate" lend tdwa niakiye ~° ~~

Can mak6baza ndSin hiydye dm

At6 lend tdwa niakiye - - _ _ o _

Ate lend tdwa makiye °

Can mak6baza nd£in hiydye din

At£ lend tdwa makfye °

Father, all these things he has made me own,
Father, all these things he has made me own,
The trees and the forests standing in their places;
Father, all these things he has made me own,
Father, all these things he has made me own,
The trees and the forests standing in their places,
Father, all these things he has made me own.

so Densmore, op. cit., p. 117. This song was sung "as the Intercessor
[in the Sun Dance] painted the sacred pole." "Like other songs per-
taining to his ceremonial office, it was sung alone and without the drum,
the people listening attentively." To this group belong numbers 17, 44,
47, 52, 62, 105. The last song mentioned (105) shows an interesting
variation, discussion of which for the present must be omitted. Its pattern
is as follows:

_ o o v — oo— o«r_r/ffvo_oo_

ov— «r«r<ro— oo —

1922]

Montgomery: Songs of the Tetori-Sioux

281

4. Songs in which the rhythmic pattern is repeated to different
words:31

OPENING PEAYEE OF THE SUN DANCEsz

TunkaSila

Ho uwdyin kte — "

TuwkdSila

Ho uwayin kte " — "

Namdhon ye

Maka sit6mniyan
Ho uwayin kte
Namahon ye
Tunkaslla
Wanf kte!6
Epel6 o o

Grandfather,

A voice I am going to send

Grandfather,

A voice I am going to send

Hear me,

All over the universe

A voice I am going to send

Hear me

Grandfather,

I will live

I have said it.

1 si It will be noted that in the three songs listed above the repetition
is of the pattern and the words.

32 Densmore, op. tit., p. 130. This song was used at the conclusion of
the opening dance. It was sung by the Intercessor, all the people listening
attentively.

282 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

5. Songs in which the lines group themselves into stanzas and
in which there is incremental change:

SONG CONCERNING THE SUN AND THE MOONss

Anp6 wi kin kola wayelo
Anp6 wi kin kola wayelo
Cangle^ka le koyag mayelo

Wanbli wan koyag mayelo
he lo

Hany6 wi kin kola wayelo
Hany6 wi kin kola wayelo
Pehara wan koyag mayelo

Cetan wan koyag may61o

he lo ~ —

It is clear from the foregoing analyses that the structure of
the Teton songs is varied. Before we can make much headway
in generalization we must determine the relation of the form to
the use of the song and the method of performance. Would the
song of an individual performer differ from that sung by a
group? Does a war song differ from a strictly ceremonial song?
Questions of this sort naturally shape themselves upon the ob-
servations we have made. It cannot be said that the Teton
lacked the sense of symmetry; but it is obvious that there is
nothing very complex in his verse patterns. Moreover, it might
be shown that when his songs are placed beside those of the
Navajo they are almost crude, and when they are compared with
those of the Eskimo they are exceedingly regular in form. In
any case, the Teton is groping for that regularity in complexity
which is pleasing to the eye and the ear.

ss Densmore, op. cit., p. 139. Sung by the Intercessor during one of
the periods when the drummers rested; the people listened attentively.
Of this song, the Indian who gave it to Miss Densmore said: "This is a
song concerning a dream of an Intercessor. In his dream he saw the
rising sun with rays streaming around it. He made an ornament which
represented this. At first he alone wore it, but afterward others wore
the same ornament. It is a hoop with feathers fastened lightly to it. The
hoop represents the sun, and the feathers fastened to it are feathers of the
eagle, which is the bird of day, the crane, which is the bird of night, and
the hawk, which is the bird of prey. ' '

34 It is interesting to note that here, too, there is an approach to rhyme.
This feature is emphasized by the vocables he lo.

1922] Montgomery: Songs of the Teton- Sioux 283

"We may suggest tentatively that he perceives his rhythm in
larger units than we are accustomed to recognize and that in
the matter of song pattern he does not often venture beyond
mere line, or thought, repetition.35 Isolated, these observations
may appear obvious ; in relation to the larger problems of struc-
ture in primitive art, in decorative and ceremonial design, for
example, and to the general questions regarding the structure
of folk song, they may assume a certain significance.

35 The problems of parallelism must be postponed for the present.
Involving as they do a variety of questions regarding the relations be-
tween meaning and pattern, their complexity requires separate treatment.

A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS
OF^CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY

A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF
CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY

Tristia. An ode on President Garfield's death. In the Buffalo Express,
September, 1881.

Anelpis, Mara, and other lyrics; also translations in verse from Simonides
and Anacreon, and Anacreontics. In the Buffalo Express, various
issues, 1881.

Translations in verse from Alcman, and Anacreontics. In the Buffalo
Sunday Courier, various issues, 1881.

Book reviews. In the Buffalo Express, 1881.

A Clumsy Biographer. A review of A. J. Symington 's ' ' William Words-
worth." In The Dial, Chicago, vol. 2, pp. 216-218 (January, 1882).

A Madman of Letters. In The Dial, vol. 3, pp. 163-165, December, 1882.

Once. Alumni poem, University of Michigan, June 27, 1883. In The Ann
Arbor Eegister, of approximate date.

Macbeth. In Shakespeariana, vol. 1 (1884), pp. 72-74.

The University of Michigan. In Descriptive America, a monthly maga-
zine, August, 1884.

The History of Alexander the Great. A review of E. J. Chinnock's
translation of Arrian. In The Dial, August, 1884.

T.o Q. H. F. Alcaics. In Atlantic Monthly, August, 1886.

Cubes, Marbles, and Men. A commencement address, Grand Rapids High
School, June, 1889. In a Grand Eapids daily newspaper of that date.

On the Seventh Level. A story. In The Cosmopolitan, a monthly maga-
zine, vol. 7 (1889), pp. 23-31, 185-191, 267-277. David H. Browne,
collaborator.

Songs of the Yellow and Blue. Words by Charles Gayley and F. N. Scott.
Music by A. A. Stanley. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1889.
39 pp. Ed. 2, Ann Arbor, J. V. Sheehan & Co., 1895.

A Guide to the Literature of Aesthetics (University of California Library
Bulletin, no. 11). Berkeley, 1890. 5+116 pp. Fred Newton Scott,
collaborator.

Bibliography of Six Shakespearean Tragedies. Berkeley, October, 1891.
A syllabus published by the University of California.

An Eastern Evensong. A poem. In The Berkeleyan, February 3, 1893.

288 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

University Extension in California. In University Extension, a monthly
journal, vol. 2 (1893), pp. 230-241.

University Extension in California. In The Berkeleyan, March 17, 1893,
pp. 79-83.

The Classic Myths in English Literature, based chiefly on Bulfinch 's ' ' Age
of Fable" (1855), accompanied by an interpretative and illustrative
commentary. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1893. xxxviii + 539 pp. Later
enlarged editions are entitled ' ' The Classic Myths in English Literature
and in Art, " xli + 597 pp.

English Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan. A course of lectures and
readings under the auspices of the Unity Club of Los Angeles, January,

1894. Los Angeles, 1893. 8 pp. A syllabus.

Suggestions to Teachers of English in the Secondary Schools. Berkeley,
University of California, 1894: 68 pp. Cornelius Beach Bradley,
collaborator. Ed. 2, revised and enlarged. 1906. 78 pp.

A Society of Comparative Literature. In The Dial, August 1, 1894.

English at the University of Chicago. In The Dial, July 16, 1894. Re-
printed in W. M. Payne, English in American Universities. Boston,

1895, pp. 99-109.

The Age-End Style. A review of ' ' The Yellow Book, ' ' 1895. In the San
Francisco Examiner, March 10, 1895.

The Literature of Degeneracy. A review of Nordau's "Degeneration."
In the San Francisco Chronicle, April 28, 1895. 3 columns.

Commemorative Ode. In The Quarter Centennial Celebration of the
Presidency of James Burrill Angell, University of Michigan, 1896,
pp. 18-20.

Oliver Goldsmith. An essay. In C. D. Warner, Library of the World's
Best Literature. New York, J. A. Hill Co., 1896, vol. 11, pp. 6501-6509.

Of Literary Fashions. In Phyllida (San Francisco), January 15, 1897, pp.
5-6.

On the Hedonistic, Idealistic, and Eealistic in Literature. In Phyllida,
January 22, 1897, pp. 3-4.

The Nobler Point of View. In The Blue and Gold, University of Cali-
fornia, 1897.

Under Mt. Tallac. A poem. In The University of California Magazine,
vol. 3 (1897), p. 45.

The Eevival of Eomance. A review of recent fiction. In the San Fran-
cisco Examiner, December 18, 1898.

An Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism.
[Vol. 1], The Bases in Aesthetics and Poetics. Boston, Ginn & Co.,
1899. xii + 587 pp. Fred Newton Scott, collaborator.

1922] Published Writings of Charles Mills Gayley 289

A Suggestion from Oxford for California. In The University of California
Magazine, vol. 5 (1899), pp. 1-9.

When the Queen was Young. A poem. In the San Francisco Examiner,
November 5, 1899; in The Occident, November 15, 1899; in The Uni-
versity of California Magazine, vol. 5, p. 401.

The Nations. A poem. In the San Francisco Chronicle, December 31, 1899;
in The Occident, January 17, 1900.

The Flouting of the Law. Phi Beta Kappa poem, Berkeley, 1899. In the
San Francisco Sunday Examiner, March 4, 1900.

The Poetry of Social Reform. In University of California Chronicle,
vol. 3 (1900), pp. 373-386.

The Development of Debating at California. In The Occident, February
7, 1900. 2 pp.

The Ninth Jubilee of the University of Glasgow. In University of
California Chronicle, vol. 4 (1901), pp. 325-336.

Fresh Light on Facts and Dates in the Life of Robert Greene. 1 p.
In American Philological Association, Proceedings, vol. 32 (1901).

Our Teachers of National Ideals. An address before the California So-
ciety of the Sons of the Revolution, February 22, 1902.

Poetry of the People, comprising poems illustrative of the history and
national spirit of England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, selected
and arranged with notes. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1903. xvii -f- 403 pp.
Martin C. Flaherty, collaborator. An enlarged edition was published
in 1920, including poems and songs of the world war. xx + 439 pp.

What is "Comparative Literature?" In Atlantic Monthly, vol. 92 (1903),
pp. 56-68. Reprinted in part in American Philological Association,
Proceedings, vol. 34, pp. Ixxiv-lxxx.

Representative English Comedies, with introductory essays and notes, an
historical view of our earlier comedy, and other monographs by various
writers, under the general editorship of Charles Mills Gayley. New
York, Macmillan, 1903-1914. 3 vols. Preface to vol. 3, dated June 26,
1914, states that "the next volume, now well under way, will present
the comedy of the Restoration."

Songs of Content, a volume of verse by the late Ralph Erwin. Gibbs,
published under the auspices of the English Club and the literary
magazines of the University of California, and edited with an intro-
duction by Charles Mills Gayley. San Francisco, P. Elder & Co.,
1903. xii + 82 pp.

A New Alexandrian Library. In New York Evening Post, November,
1904.

Where Are the Gods? A song. In Sunset Magazine, vol. 12 (1904), p. 565.

The Earlier Miracle Plays of England. In International Quarterly, vol.
10 (1904), pp. 108-129.

290 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

Principles and Progress of English Poetry, with representative master-
• pieces and notes. New York, Macmillan, 1904. cxi + 595 pp. Clement
C. Young, collaborator. Later editions (1916, 1917) appear under the
title, "English Poetry: Its Principles and Progress."

The Star of Bethlehem, a Miracle Play of the Nativity, reconstructed
from the Towneley and other old English cycles (of the XHIth, XlVth,
and XVth centuries) and supplemented and adapted to modern condi-
tions. As composed for Mr. Ben Greet and presented by his company.
New York, Fox, Duffield & Co., 1904. xix + 70 pp.

The Later Miracle Plays of England. In International Quarterly, vol. 12
(1905), pp. 67-88.

The Reproduction of Manuscripts from the American Point of View.
In Actes du Congres international pour la reproduction des manuscrits,
des monnaies et des sceaux, tenu a Liege, les 21-23 aout, 1905, pp.
203-215.

An Account of the Proceedings of the International Congress for the
Eeproduction of Manuscripts, Liege, August 21-23, 1905. In U. S.
Commissioner of Education, Annual Eeport, 1905, vol. 1, pp. 131-142.

International Congress on Facsimiles at Liege. In New York Evening
Post, September, 1905.

Songs of the University of California, composed and edited by C. M.
Gayley and E. A. Waring. Music supervised by H. B. Pasmore.
Berkeley, 1905. 84 pp. A second edition, revised and enlarged, with-
out names of compilers, was published, 1908, by the Students' Co-
operative Society. 97 pp.

El Dorado. A song. In Sunset, vol. 15 (1905), pp. 44-45.

The Woman's College. An address at Mills College. In Mills College
White and Gold, November-December, 1905, pp. 54-57.

The Development of Literary Studies during the Nineteenth Century. In
The Congress of Arts and Science, Universal Exposition, St. Louis,
ed. by Howard J. Eogers. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1906, vol. 3,
pp. 323-353.

Plays of Our Forefathers and Some of the Traditions upon Which They
Were Founded. New York, Duffield & Co., 1907. xi + 349 pp.

The Commencement Oration at the University of Michigan, June, 1909.

In Michigan Alumnus, vol. 15, pp. 438-448.
The Irish Influence in Civilization. In University of California Chronicle,

vol. 11 (1909), pp. 204-216.
Idols of Education. New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910. 3+181

pp. Another edition, 1916.

In Memory of Irving Stringham. In "In Memoriam: Dean Stringham, "
University of California Chronicle, vol. 12 (January, 1910), pp. 16-18.

1922] Published Writings of Charles Milti Gayley 291

The Pilgrims. A song of the eightieth anniversary of Psi Upsilon,
November 23, 1913. New York, Psi Upsilon Executive Committee,
1913.

Beaumont, the Dramatist; a portrait, with some account of his circle,
Elizabethan and Jacobean, and of his association with John Fletcher.
New York, Century Co., 1914. iii + 445 pp. The title of the London
edition, 1914, is "Francis Beaumont: Dramatist; a portrait, etc."

Shakespeare — Heart of the Race. Phi Beta Kappa poem. Ann Arbor,
1916. In Detroit Saturday Night, May 13, 1916. Also in A Book of
Homage to Shakespeare, ed. by Israel Gollancz. Oxford University Press,

1916, pp. 340-341.

The Birthday of Lafayette. A speech, September 6, 1917. In The Dedi-
cation of the Library of French Thought. University of California
Press, 1918, pp. 14-16.

First Cousins to the Enemy. A speech in the Greek Theater, October 19,

1917. In Berkeley Daily Gazette, October 20, 1917. 3 columns.

The Duty of the American Teacher during the War. In part in Berkeley
Daily Gazette, November 16, 1917. 1 column.

For These We Give Thanks. In The Argonaut, December 8, 1917, p. 359.
2 columns. Concluding portion of a Thanksgiving address, November
29, 1917.

America to England. A poem. In The Argonaut, December 29, 1917.

Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America. New York, Mac-
millan, 1917. vii+270 pp.

America to England: 1917 and Shakespeare — Heart of the Race. Two
poems in University of California Chronicle, vol. 20 (1918), pp. 197-200.

Smash the Kaiser. A speech before the Liberty Loan Committee of 1000,
Commercial Club, San Francisco, January 16, 1918. In part in the
San Francisco Bulletin and the San Francisco Chronicle, January 17,
1918.

The War and Our Part in It. A speech for the Third Liberty Loan,
Phoenix, Arizona, April 5, 1918. In part in the Phoenix Gazette and
the Arizona Republican, April 6, 1918.

"Peace, peace, when there is no peace." A speech before the University
of California alumni, Stockton, May 16, 1918. In part in Stockton
Independent, May 17, 1918. 1% columns.

Red Cross appeal. In Berkeley Daily Gazette, May 22, 1918.

A New Sort of Memorial Day. An address at the National Cemetery,
Presidio, San Francisco, May 30, 1918. In part in the San Francisco
Examiner and the San Francisco Bulletin, May 31, 1918.

292 University of California Publications in Modern Philology [Vol. 11

The Pan-German Dream. A speech before the National Electric Light
Association, Del Monte, California, May 10, 1918, and before the San
Francisco Association of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
June 18, 1918. In part in Proceedings, San Francisco Association,
Amer. Soc. Civil Engineers, June 18, 1918. 6 pp.

Defense of German Language Studies in the University. In Berkeley Daily
Gazette, June 22, 1918. 1 column.

The Teaching of German during the War. A speech before the Berkeley
Defense Corps, July 1, 1918. In part in Berkeley Daily Gazette, July 2,
1918. 1 column.

In Honor of France. A speech in the Greek Theater, August 25, 1918. In
Berkeley Daily Gazette, August 26, 1918. 1 column.

Appeal for the Fourth Liberty Loan. In the Daily Californian, October
15, 1918, and Berkeley Daily Gazette, October 16, 1918. 1 column.

"How art thou fallen, O Lucifer!" A speech in the Greek Theater,
Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. In the Daily Californian, No-
vember 12, 1918. 2 columns.

The British Navy and the Freedom of the Seas. A speech in Harmon
Gymnasium, December 7, 1918. In University of California Chronicle,
vol. 21, pp. 56-61.

Some Lessons of the War. An address in Grace Cathedral chapel, February
26, 1919, and in Grace Cathedral, Memorial Sunday, May 25, 1919. In
The Pacific Churchman, March, 1919; and, enlarged, in University of
California Chronicle, vol. 21, pp. 210-219.

The Higher Victory. An address on the League of Nations before the
State Building Trades Council, Fresno, March 19, 1919. In Organized
Labor, vol. 20, no. 14 (April 5, 1919) ; and in revised form in University
of California Chronicle, vol. 21, pp. 96-113.

The Eighteous Hath Hope in His Death. In the Daily Californian, April
7, 1919. 1 column.

Her Children Call Her Blessed. Kegent Phoebe Apperson Hearst. An
address in the Greek Theater, April 22, 1919. In University of Cali-
fornia Chronicle, vol. 21, pp. 248-255.

The Warden of Peace. A speech in the Greek Theater, September 3, 1919.
In University of California Chronicle, vol. 21, pp. 331-334.

Lyric, Epic, and Allied Forms of Poetry. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1920.
xv + 900 pp. Benjamin Putnam Kurtz, collaborator. This forms
vol. 2 of "An Introduction to the Methods, and Materials of Literary
Criticism. ' '

English Poetry: Its Principles and Progress. Revised and enlarged edition,
with a new introduction to the study of poetry. New York, Macmillan,
1920. Ixvii + 728 pp. C. C. Young and B. P. Kurtz, collaborators.

PB
13
C3

v.ll

California. University

University of California
publications in modern
philology

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

CIRCULATE AS MONOGRAPH

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "University of California publications in modern philology"

See other formats